Cloud Explained: How Does a VPS Work?
Hong Kong VPS server is a popular service that allows users to create their own virtual machines without paying for the full capacity of a bare metal server. As VPS instances are the building blocks of every cloud, understanding the technology behind a VPS instance is an excellent starting point for understanding the cloud as a whole. Most cloud users are aware of the terms VPS, virtual machine, or compute instance, but few understand the service on a technical level. Here is a more detailed technical explanation from Varidata.
What does VPS mean?
VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. It is a virtual environment that runs on a physical server, often housed in a data center. A VPS operates like a virtual machine thanks to the virtualization technique, which gives it access to its own virtual CPU cores, RAM, storage, and network interfaces.
Virtualization
What is virtualization?
As earlier mentioned, virtualization refers to the technique of building a virtual operating system on top of a physical server. Multiple users can run different operating systems on the same physical machine, all of which are independent of one another. For example, user A might use CentOS, while user B uses Debian on a virtual machine on the same physical server.
Hypervisor
A hypervisor is a piece of software that makes virtualization possible. It connects to the server hardware directly and assigns resources such as RAM (memory) and CPU (processor) to each VPS. From the provider’s point of view, each virtual machine is merely a single data file that can be moved around as needed. However from the user’s perspective each virtual machine is a fully operational environment.
Major advantages of VPS
Security and Independence
One of the primary benefits of a VPS is that instances typically have root access, which allows users to modify the operating system as well as install and run any applications and programs.
Not only does it allow advanced customization of each VPS independently, but it also ensures complete separation between each environment. If one of the VPS fails to respond or is hacked, the other VPS remains unaffected. This independence is particularly effective in terms of risk reduction. When one element fails, the rest of the environment remains unchanged. This also makes VPS the perfect sandbox for developing and testing new things.
Affordability and Customization
The rise of VPSs has also contributed to the growing popularity of microservices. The approach of deploying 1 server = 1 task is expensive with dedicated servers because the majority of the server capacity is unused. However, VPS is more affordable because you can create a small instance with resources dedicated to that task. Another reason is the portability and scalability of virtual machines, which will be discussed more below.
Portability and Scalability
From the perspective of the provider, each VPS is a huge data file that runs on the host machine via a hypervisor. This large data file can be moved to a different server. This allows you to migrate a VPS from one physical host to another without having to stop the machine.
Because the VPS operating system is virtual, scaling up or down an instance is simple. In other words, if you run out of hardware capacity, you can always buy more. Simply navigate to your Virtual Private Instance and click the Upgrade VPS button. You can instantly increase the number of CPU cores, RAM, or hard disk capacity.
VPS and other products
VPS vs Virtual Machine vs Cloud Instance
It’s essentially the same technology under a different name. You may have noticed that we used the terms VPS, virtual machine, and cloud instance interchangeably throughout this article. They are typically virtual environments created with a hypervisor and hosted in physical servers. Some businesses even have their own names, such as “droplet” or “ec2.”
VPS vs Dedicated Server (Bare Metal Server)
The main difference between a VPS and a bare metal server is the price and the computing power available. You can run the same operating system on a VPS and a dedicated server, but dedicated servers usually have more computing power and a higher price tag.
VPS Hosting vs. Shared Web Hosting
Some individuals make the comparison between VPS and shared web hosting. While both can host a website or webmail, shared hosting does not provide root access or the ability to run any application you need. If your website’s performance is constantly suffering owing to high traffic, and your customers are complaining about how slow it is, it’s time to upgrade to a VPS.
More VPS Types
VPS services are available in a variety of configurations. For example, dedicated storage VPS is suitable for those who require a significant amount of storage space but do not require fast read and write speeds. Ideally, you merely need somewhere to store your data, but you don’t want to use object storage. Please keep an eye out for Varidata’s upcoming Hong Kong VPS.
