VPS Hosting explained

[WebHost Admin]

Introduction to VPS Hosting

VPS - short for “Virutal Private Server” - is a way to manage a webhosting account in a way that mimicks a full dedicated server, but without the responsibilities of administrating a full server.

In effect, it’s a half-way point between shared Reseller Hosting and Dedicated Hosting - an attempt to bridge the gap between the relative ease of administrating a webhosting account via an admin panel, and command line management of a server environment.

This means you can be more gently eased into general admin tasks on a server - but without the risks, as you never have actual command line control of the server root - it’s a Virtual Private Server.

It isn’t for everyone, of course - a user may decide they are technically competent to admin a server regardless, or a less experienced user may instead elect to move into Managed Server hosting, and thus avoid any need for command line experience.

You also have more resources than you’d normally expect from a reseller account, but as always, it comes at a price.


What to expect from VPS Hosting

VPS hosting has much in common with Reseller Hosting in terms of support - effectively, it’s like Reseller Hosting with bells and whistles.

Therefore you should expect a comparable level of support form your webhosting provider - which means your own problems are fine to be addressed, but if you are reselling hosting to your customers, they’ll likely be your responsibility as per normal.


Advantages/Disadvantages of VPS Hosting

Pros

• More hosting resources to work with
• Potentially useful experience before moving onto managing a full server
• More freedom on the server itself, as there are rarely more than a few VPS accounts on any single server
• It’s a safer command line environement to work in - you cannot cripple the server even if you mess up

Cons

• You will face more technical challenges than using a reseller account
• Increased costs accompany increased resources
• VPS hosting options are still relatively uncommon - you may not find a VPS solution for your preferred platofmr of even your preferred webhost

Overall
A step between reseller and dedicated, it offers a challenge for the ambitious webhosting webmaster.

However, VPS hosting may not compare favourably on price to reseller and dedicated options also available.

[McDuck]

What is the general price difference between a reseller and VPS account?
What sort of sites would benefit from being on a VPS server?

[brian]

Pricing can create a big different - with a VPS, you're basically managing a virtual server, so if you don't know how to do that then you may have to pay someone else to manage one.

I was looking at moving a reseller account to a VPS a while back, but active management fees made it cost-inefficient for what I needed, and I ended up simply moving on to a managed server instead.

As for sites on a VPs - I guess the point about VPS is that it's a step between reseller and dedicated hosting, but unlike reseller hosting, you need the technical skills and the time available to run a server at the command line. So if you have sites growing out of a reseller, but need less resources than a dedicated box, then VPS could work for you if you can manage it.

Hope that helps.

[aquariancore]

What does VPS offer bandwidth wise that I can benefit from?

[monaghan]

VPS has nothing to do with allocated bandwidth.

A VPS is simply a virtual server running alongside other virtual servers on a physical server.

The bandwidth in your package (whether shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS, dedicated server or co-location) is purely down to what your supplier offers.

[JohnR]

Nice post. I had the idea of what I thought was VPS all wrong. Thanks for clearing that up.