When it comes to offering the best managed virtual private servers, it’s important to keep in mind that virtual private servers are different than dedicated servers.
Both virtual private servers, also referred to as VPS, and dedicated servers are very similar. In principle, a virtual private server believes itself to be a dedicated server, except it’s all run on software instead of actual physical hardware. Let’s put it this way, if you had a dedicated server with 4GB RAM and a 4GB HDD, you could create four virtual private servers inside that dedicated server, each with 1GB RAM and 1GB HDD.
Virtual private servers believe themselves to be dedicated servers, they think they are real physical machines and act as such. You can do everything on a virtual private server that can be done on a dedicated server, such as installing distributions of Windows or Linux like CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.
Since dedicated servers are generally more powerful, they usually tend to cost more than their virtual server counterparts. Unfortunately there is no foolproof method to detect if it’s a virtual server or not although here are some things you can try:
OpenVZ / Virtuozzo
Check for /proc/vz or /proc/vz/veinfo
Xen
Check for either /proc/sys/xen or sys/bus/xen or /proc/xen
Linux VServer
Check for s_context or VxID in /proc/self/status
VMWare / Parallels
Run lspci for the VMWare VGA adaper or video card.
Run dmidecode and check mentions of VMWare or Parallels.
KVM
Run lspi and check RAM memory: Qumranet, Inc. Virtio memory balloon
Solaris Zone
Check for /sbin/zonename
Most distributions of Linux allow the use of virt-what what can determine the type of virtualization technology the system is using.
There are many benefits of using a managed virtual private server, such as increased availability options and live migrations on certain cloud hosting platforms. Virtual private servers allow easy scalability with the option to upgrade or downgrade your server without usage interruptions. Usually it’s a good idea to move up from shared hosting to a managed virtual private server before transferring to a dedicated server, unless you know what you’re doing.
It’s a good idea to move to a VPS if:
- Your website consumes all your CPU and/or RAM resources
- You want increased security over shared hosting
- Access to more resources like disk space and increased connection speeds
- You want a private server with complete control and no shared resources
Even though we have gone over the differences between virtual private servers and dedicated servers, it’s also important to still clarify the differences between unmanaged virtual private server hosting and managed virtual private server hosting.
There are two types of VPS hosting companies.
Company A: These guys offer unmanaged virtual private servers and can provide the cheapest VPS hosting services, however, they offer no support. You pay them for hosting your virtual private server, but other than that, there is no support for general issues. If something happens on your server, you’re on your own.
Company B: These guys offer managed virtual private server hosting and can provide the best VPS hosting services, and although the plans may be priced slightly higher, they come with managed support. Managed virtual private servers should be strongly considered for those that don’t feel comfortable with all the responsibilities of hosting their own server.
Here is a list of What can you do with a VPS
If you want the best managed virtual private servers then consider Astral Servers for our superior VPS hosting solutions. All our managed virtual private servers are backed with our 24 hour customer assistance team as well as our advanced Anti-DDoS mitigation firewalls. All of our virtual and dedicated servers come with unlimited data transfer at guaranteed speeds. Contact one of our sales representatives today to see how Astral Servers can improve upon your overall hosting experience.