A website is a must for any business – be it a start-up or a large set-up. A site may be simply informational, an interactive one, or even a full-fledged portal with dedicated shopping features as well as blogs, reviews and forums thrown in.
The type of site usually dictates the kind of hosting that will best serve its purpose. What is important for high-volume traffic sites is to have their websites hosted on servers capable of handling such numbers without bounces or slowdown of traffic.
High volume sites are offered the choice of a VPS (Virtual Private Server) web hosting or a dedicated server hosting. VPS web hosting is affordable while a dedicated server hosting is more expensive. There is an essential difference and costs reflect the quality of service.
VPS Web Hosting
A server is configured through software to have several virtual machines running on a single system. To the customer, the virtual machine appears as a server running its own software, having the privacy and administrative control and with the ability of being rebooted without affecting the actual physical server. The hardware is also emulated through software, which allocates a share of resources of the physical server to the emulated virtual private server.
A user has full access and control over his “server” and can install any software that runs on the installed OS. The cost of a VPS web hosting is much less than that of a dedicated server hosting. However, since a virtual private server is in effect, an emulation of the actual computer server and its hardware resources, speed can be slower and in case of very high traffic sites, this can show significantly.
Medium traffic sites benefit from such Cheap VPS web hosting as this type of hosting bridges the gap between shared hosting and dedicated server hosting in terms of quality of service and cost. Security and firewalls may not be as formidable as those on dedicated servers. Nonetheless, a VPS web hosting is affordable and is for medium traffic sites, which are growing and will eventually move on to dedicated servers.
Dedicated Server Hosting
A dedicated server is a type of hosting in which a user is assigned a separate server with its own hardware and resources totally in his control and under his administration. This may be offered in a managed environment where the data center or host provides support and administration or leaves the entire administration to the client.
Dedicated servers have high speed servers, routers and all hardware attached and are located in climate-controlled data centers with 24×7 support and ontime. Since these servers connect directly to the internet backbone, high speed and large bandwidth is assured, which is ideal for websites with high traffic and the need to be always accessible. In terms of security, firewalls, technical support, management and support are excellent and there is virtually unlimited bandwidth, allowing for large traffic. This type of dedicated server hosting is ideal for large business organizations or portals. With many players in the market, dedicated server hosting is becoming cheaper and more affordable. To sum it up, while both types offer the user exclusive control over his operating system and resources, in a VPS web hosting server the resources and system are emulated and are not physically there while in a dedicated server, there is an actual set of hardware for the exclusive use of the client.