For businesses of all sizes, the web hosting conversation is a big one. Selecting a type of hosting for your small business’s website can determine important elements of your site and its functionality.
This includes everything from performance to scalability to the types of content your website can deliver on a regular basis over a long period of time. Sure, there are many types of hosting that can deliver on performance and scalability, but the reality for many small businesses is that resources are limited.
For many of these business owners, this means taking a closer look at cloud-based VPS hosting. In this post, we’ll dig a little deeper into the VPS cloud hosting and why it may be a viable option for your company’s website.
What is Cloud-based VPS Hosting?
Before we start talking more about why you should look into a cloud VPS host, it’s important that you wrap your mind around the concept.
In simple terms, a cloud virtual private server (VPS) is almost exactly what it sounds like. The VPS is a virtual server that is hosted on multiple servers shared with several other hosting subscribers.
The main difference between cloud VPS hosting and regular subscriber-based cloud hosting is that other users don’t affect your VPS’ performance or computing power. It actually has its own operating system and software, which allows you to fully customize its capabilities.
Benefits of VPS in the Cloud
·       Cost – Most standard VPS providers are hosted on dedicated servers that make you responsible for purchasing hypervisor and other licensing fees. Cloud-hosted VPS takes all of that pressure off of you and places it on the cloud-hosting provider.
·       Performance/Computing Power – Much like a traditional VPS, your cloud provider will give you an allotted amount of computing power (CPU + RAM + Storage). In most cases, you’ll be given a significant amount of power. One of the main benefits of a cloud-based VPS host is that you’ll have access to the same level of power that you’d have with a dedicated host, but at a fraction of the price.
·       Scalability – If you’re like most small businesses, you’re in the game to experience a significant amount of growth. Owning your own servers means that every time you need to upgrade or expand, you’ll need to spend a hefty price to do so. With a cloud-based VPS, scaling up or out is elastic since you’re only paying for the amount of computing power and storage space that you need at any given time. If you need more computing resources, simply purchase more through your provider.
·       Reliability – Lastly, cloud VPS hosting is much more reliable than traditional VPS hosting. This is mainly because you’re not relying on a single server or set of servers for support. You don’t have to hire an IT staff to manage these servers. This is what you’re paying the cloud provider for. As a result, you company will experience minimal to zero downtime in the process. Look for companies like Rackspace VPS, that boast zero downtime.
Many small business owners new to the cloud come at it from one of two perspectives. They either whole-heartedly embrace the cloud without ever considering some of the vulnerabilities of cloud hosting. Or, they make the mistake of only looking at the potential vulnerabilities of the cloud in general. The right position is somewhere in the middle. Know that not all cloud providers are created equal. Educate yourself before settling on a specific cloud VPS host.