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Guest article: Move Up to Virtual Private Server?
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Traditional Shared Hosting
Most people are familiar with "shared" web hosting accounts. A shared hosting account is where you rent disc space on a server which is shared among many other users.
This is a cost effective way to getting started as a webmaster but it has some disadvantages. Firstly you may encounter email delivery problems if someone else with a site on the server decides to run a large business mailing. Also abuse of web hosting providers service may result in a torrent of spam clogging the shared mail queue, causing a "denial of service" attack.
You will find your website slowing down when someone else with a datebase intensive website (such as a forum or bulletin board). Another disadvantage of shared hosting is that you very rarely get administrator or root access. This can make setting up dynamic sites more tricky. Also you can't install your own software and will have to put up with software libraries (such as Perl or PHP) that the web hosting provider has installed.
Security
There are also security issues to consider of using a shared file system. Could other users access your files and data with an appropriate script? This is of critical concern if you are considering ecommerce hosting and in particular storing credit card information. Certain credit card payment processors may wish you to have a more secure arrangement than a shared hosting server. A shared server introduces many more security vectors and someone elses unpatched phpBB script may result in lost business and downtime for you.
Enter the Virtual Private Server
How can you avoid this problem? A few years ago you would have had to consider a dedicated server. However there has been a relatively recent development in web hosting - the virtual dedicated server. These are often known as VPS's or Virtual Private Servers. A virtual dedicated server lets you run your sites as if you had your own "dedicated" server, except it is cheaper because you are really just using part of a server that has been split into multiple virtual dedicated servers.
The most important distinction to shared virtual hosting is that you have "root" or admin access and you control your own background processes, such as apache (httpd), qmail (smptd) and MySQL (databases) So someone elses buggy application or script is not going to crash or interfere with your own processes. Furthermore you have filesystem security as it effectively jailed or "chrooted" from other users and processes, and you can install your own libraries and software.
Where to Find a VPS Hosting
There are now plenty of VPS Providers. You can find many by searching Google for "virtual private servers" or "vps hosting" or looking in one of the many web hosting directories or forums. Virtuozzo by SW-Soft is the main commercial software that web hosts use to run virtual hosting services, but there are others. For instance vserver is similar in principle to Virtuozzo but is not as well used. Open source vps systems exist in the form of OpenVZ ( a subset of Virtuozzo) UML (User Mode Linux) and more recently Xen. It's highly likely that you will be hosted on a Virtuozzo system.
VPS hosting used to be the prerogative of the smaller web hosts primarily looking for a more geeky market but recently the bigger mainstream web hosts have moved into VPS's. Virtual Dedicated Server hosting starts at just £30 a month. You'll get a much more generous bandwidth allowance compared to shared hosting, and none of the problems that go with a shared host. Usually you get multiple IP addresses that are exclusive to your sites, which you will need for SSL certificate hosting and for running your own nameservers if you want to register domain names.
So what's the catch? Apart from the price there isn't one. You'll be spending a lot more on hosting each month but not as much a for a real dedicated server. The main drawback of upgrading to virtual dedicated hosting is that you will need to be more technically proficient so that you can administer the server. You might think this requires a lot Linux skills to make sure your server runs smoothly but most VPS hosts provide a control panel such as Plesk or CPanel to make administrative tasks a cinch.
Many hosting providers will offer "premium" or managed support which includes a bit more hand holding - this is definitely recommended if you don't have much experience with Linux, and are not confident about keeping your VPS updated. It's worth talking to your web host about updating and installing software. If its a Virtuozzo system, the web host will have pre-installed templates for common applications such as Coldfusion which can be rolled out across many VPS's thus cutting down on disc space inside your VPS and well as saving memory and resources on the "hardware node" it runs on. Quite often the VPS provider can roll out operating system updates and bugfixes across all their VPS infrastructure.
With the increased speed and bandwidth that a virtual dedicated host offers, and none of the shared hosting headaches, the move is one you will never regret.
About the author
Paul Lee has over six years experience in the web hosting industry and was formerly Senior System Administrator with Simply.Com Limited. He currently lives and works in London and runs his own consultancy and hosting company Weycrest.
Labels: hosting
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