A VPS Guide to Understanding 
Curious about how it all works?
You’ve been operating your website successfully and suddenly it takes off like a rocket. You realize you have outgrown your shared hosting plan that you started with for about $10 a month but your needs are not quite as grand as justifying the expenditure of a dedicated server. What do you do?
Between the common ground of shared servers and the expense and private protections of the dedicated server, there is a solution. It is called Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting and it provides the flexibility you need while remaining scalable and affordable.
This VPS guide should assist you in understanding the basics of VPS hosting and how to get started.
The processes involved with apportioning the resources of a server to VPS instances are known as virtualization. Virtualization allows one host server to be divided into many Virtual Private Servers. In some cases, multiple operating systems can even run concurrently on one host computer.
Microsoft Hyper-V VPS
Virtualization at the hardware level that creates and monitors the execution of child partitions, or virtual servers for your OS. It is designed to provide complete control over a virtual server's operating system from updates, to kernel modifications.
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Parallels Virtuozzo VPS
Virtualization at the software level creating VPS containers within an operating system to simulate a dedicated server. In actuality, these are simply a more advanced form of shared hosting, but allowing much more control over settings and features.
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Among the benefits of VPS is a proprietary protection layer, or Kernel Service Abstraction Layer (KSAL), a form of gate keeper that protects the server in the following ways:
Choosing Virtualization for your VPS comes down to a few key elements. Learn more.
As with a dedicated server, the core operating system is installed as the base software layer before virtualization. Virtuozzo is then installed into the OS.
Virtualization Layer
With Virtuozzo VPS servers, virtualization occurs over the core OS. This allows a highly efficient VPS system based on a single OS shared between each VPS Server.
The Results of a Virtuozzo VPS Server
Since each VPS Server does not need to run an entire OS, resources go much further per VPS Server. This model does limit installation of OS updates and other major OS changes. Some installations or customizations cannot be completed without modification of the host OS effecting the entire server.
Virtualization Layer
With Hyper-V VPS servers the Virtualization Layer is directly over the hardware layer. This allows much greater flexibility over VPS Server operating systems within the host including full root access to a complete install of the OS from the kernel up.
The Results of a Hyper-V VPS Server
You have complete control over every software setting, configuration and more right down to the kernel of your operating system. This makes Hyper-V virtualization as close as you get to a dedicated server however it does mean that resources are used to house all features of your core OS.
Virtualization is a complicated process, but hosting with VPS doesn't need to be complicated. There are simple, powerful VPS control panels that make a VPS easy-to-use that are available for businesses that want to give their employees the tools to manage their IT needs.
Quite possibly the most recognizable and popular Web Administration Panel on the market, cPanel is offered by a variety of hosts for both Shared Hosting and VPS plans for quick and easy website management. Commonly used as a front-end for PHP-based websites, cPanel is perfectly suited for Linux servers running Apache and MySQL. In addition to many helpful and intuitive features, cPanel features the Web Host Manager tool for administering reseller accounts. Due in large part to its massive popularity, there are dozens of auto-installers for Content Management Systems such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and more that make website creation relatively fast and painless.
Designed by Parallels, Plesk is a slightly more complex take on their basic server management tool. Though a bit more involved and complicated than Parallels Plesk Optimized for Business, it's also somewhat more versatile in terms of configuration and customization. Users can inspect server logs, manage databases, and modify files and FTP user accounts with ease, without all the hand holding that comes with other panels. Perfect for reseller hosting on VPS platforms, Plesk is similar to cPanel in that it has a large customer base and as such features a rich support community and application ecosystem for simplifying tasks.
These Control Panels broaden services and enable differentiation while the intuitive interface gives end users added value by easing the learning curve of VPS hosting.
