Guide to Choosing a Virtual Private Server
Guide to Choosing a Virtual Private Server

VPS hosting would most likely be the first choice for a website owner with a growing website in a shared server. VPS follows dedicated server hosting when it comes to demand, in the web hosting Dubai sector. Most users with growing websites in a shared hosting environment opt for VPS as an upgrade due to many benefits but primarily due to the fact that it’s the next best thing to a dedicated server with a reasonable price tag. 

Why not keep the shared hosting server?

Shared hosting environments are ideal for websites that won’t have to handle large traffic, and is the cheapest hosting solution. However, shared servers can’t cope with sudden traffic spikes while a virtual server is flexible enough to adapt, and offers more resources. In a shared server, a website will have ‘neighbors’ sharing the server’s resources. So there’s a chance that the website may slow down if its neighbors take up more resources than usual. 

Why VPS?

As mentioned above, VPS offers more flexibility and resources compared to shared servers. Limitations of a shared account are not present in a virtual private server. This means the website owner will be able to customize the environment to suit the website’s needs. Most web hosting providers offer VPS hosting plans with and without technical support, which the user can choose from. 

If the website owner is not tech savvy, a plan with technical support is recommended. A managed VPS makes your job a lot easier. You should also be careful when choosing the control panel. A mainstream control panel like Plesk or cPanel would be a wise choice as it would make it easier to manage tasks. A good control panel also reduces your learning curve, giving you more time to focus on your business.

What to look for in a VPS hosting solution?

For many websites, like ecommerce sites, proper security is vital as financial transactions and sensitive user data will be involved. Taking this into account, you should make sure that the VPS hosting solution is up-to-date with all firewalls set up properly. A reliable hosting provider would also recommend SSL certificates to ensure that transactions and sensitive data are secure. 

But even the best security implementations would be less effective without regular monitoring. So before subscribing to a hosting solution, make sure the web hosting company provides 24/7 server monitoring. You should also be able to communicate with them easily through multiple channels in case of emergencies, like if the website goes down. The provider should also have a good response rate. 

To conclude, the hosting solution would be only as good as the hosting provider. So you need to invest time researching not just good hosting packages but reliable hosting providers as well. If you manage to find the right hosting company, you wouldn’t have to be concerned with the technical aspects of a VPS.