Everyone who creates a website is faced with a number of challenges, and one of the biggest challenges is choosing between the many offers. Most beginners have a very limited budget, so they don't have many options.
One of the suitable ones is shared hosting. This is an ideal choice for sites that have not yet become popular, that is, with low traffic. But if the load on the site can grow significantly in the near future, or a highly loaded project is hosted on the same physical server, for example, an e-commerce site, then this option is not the best. In such situations, a virtual private server is preferable. For a slightly higher price, you get better functionality, security, and a host of other benefits. 
Anatomy of a virtual VPS hosting.
Dedicated hosting
+ maximum control, good performance server
- high cost, qualified personnel is needed
Why might you need to switch to a VPS?
As long as the traffic of the site is low, the budget will not need to be increased - it will feel quite good on shared hosting. However, as traffic grows, most shared hosting servers will no longer be able to provide the required performance. Increased page load times can be one of the signs. Overloading can also lead to frequent unavailability of the site from the outside (it regularly “crashes”). If such symptoms appear, it means that shared hosting is not enough for a good robot of your site.Sometimes hosters notify clients that their site has run out of resources for the current month. In this case, it's time to switch to VPS hosting. If your site has a lot of multimedia content, then it will also require a more powerful VPS hosting.
Website management on VPS
All VPS services can be managed using a user-friendly interface -: Plesk, cPanel or another web console. Sometimes hosters offer their own tools.
A good option is the ISPmanager 5 Lite panel. This is a unique set of services that allow you to simultaneously configure and administer the operation of a web server, domains, mail, databases, and user access control.
How to choose a VPS: important factors
If you have made the decision to switch to VPS hosting, there are a number of factors you need to take into account when choosing a provider. Moreover, unlike virtual hosting, when choosing a VPS hosting that is really useful for your project, you have to take into account many more factors. Let's list the main ones.
Factor 1: controlled or uncontrolled
With shared hosting, you do not have root access to the server, so there is no question of server management. But in the case of a VPS, the entire virtual server is yours. Therefore, you need someone to look after him, monitor the performance. If these functions are taken over by the VPS provider, then this is a managed hosting (managed VPS), and in the case of an unmanaged VPS, you yourself are responsible for your virtual server.
Unmanaged VPS are prepared for root access only, and users will need to independently install and configure software, control panel, provide server protection and maintenance / maintenance. Unmanaged hosting will require you to monitor the performance of the virtual server and keep it running.
If the server crashed, or there were some security problems, then you should solve them - you are the only administrator of your VPS. This option is more suitable for specialists with professional server management skills. So if you are a seasoned geek and are familiar with such things as properly shutting down the system, restoring it, restarting, rebooting the server, then unmanaged hosting may be a suitable option.
As for "normal" users and business owners, they should pay a little more and use a managed VPS: the server will be monitored 24x7 by a professional System Administrator... And users can do something more familiar to them.
Again, the extent of this control can vary depending on the host and hosting plans. This should be borne in mind when comparing different VPS plans or hosters.
Factor 2: Windows or Linux
Another important point – operating system server. Most hosters offer popular Windows and Linux. Linux as Open Source is cheaper than Windows. Hosting on Linux based is quite user friendly and supports a wide variety of applications. In many cases, this is a good (maybe even better) choice. However, there are applications that are either not supported at all on Linux or are better supported on Windows. If you need to use software such as ASP or ASP.NET, then your choice is a VPS on Windows based... A Windows server is often required for .NET development or for deploying Microsoft and other applications for this platform.
Factor 3: server configuration
Server configuration plays an important role in website speed and performance. How much processing power, operational and disk memory you get - it all matters. In addition, it makes sense to inquire on which physical server your VPS will be hosted. It is better if it is powerful enough equipment of a well-known brand. And if the foundation is weak, then it is difficult to expect the stability of the entire structure.
Factor 4: reliability
Many VPS hosters guarantee 99.9% reliability. However, the declared indicator may differ from the real one, and it is always useful to get acquainted with the reviews on the Internet. For reliable and relatively uninterrupted operation of the site, this figure should not be lower than 99.95%.Factor 5: redundancy and scalability
Redundancy usually involves reserving resources, especially in the data center. For example, if the main power supply fails, the UPS and diesel generators start to operate. If the Internet provider has problems, then there must be alternative communication channels. If one physical server is overloaded, then a backup must be provided, etc. Scalability, in turn, means being able to cope with spikes in server load, usually at the expense of redundant resources. All of this translates into increased uptime and consistently high performance.
Factor 6: bandwidth quota
Most VPS providers limit the bandwidth for the virtual server and may charge you for additional fees. When choosing a VPS hosting provider, it is worth making sure that you do not have to pay too much for sufficient network bandwidth.Factor 7: customer support
Regardless of the efficiency of your hosting provider and the functionality offered, there are always some problems. In this case, convenient and effective support is needed. If a hoster is unable to provide 24/7 support, it simply isn't worth your money. When your site is idle for a long time, it can lead to a churn of visitors, and maybe even serious. financial losses... It is useful to test the hosting provider's support service first, and then decide whether it makes sense to contact them.Factor 8: price
Of course, in order to choose a hoster, you need to find out the cost of its services. The price depends on the type of service (managed or not) and the resources allocated. Which hosting plan best suits your needs is up to you.A very important point, not all hosters have a money back guarantee if the customer does not like the hosting.
Factor 9: VPS location
The closer the server is to your audience, the more effective users will have access to it and the higher the chances of rising in search engine rankings. Web analytics tools will help you understand where the target audience is concentrated and find a VPS closer. You can also create a copy of the VPS, but take into account the distance when transferring data and the responsibility for maintaining communications between remote servers.Factor 10: Additional IP Addresses
They may be required in several situations:- installing an SSL certificate;
- assigning a dedicated IP to each site on your virtual server (otherwise they will automatically receive the IP address of the VPS server);
- different IP for different channels (website, mobile applications etc.);
- different IP for different services (CMS, database, etc.);
- assignment of several IPs to one site, for example, with domains in different languages (mysite.co.uk, mysite.ru, mysite.it, mysite.ca, etc.).
Summary
As your site grows and develops, VPS hosting at some point becomes a necessity, and you should be very careful in choosing a service that suits your preferences. To do this, you need, at least, to know these requirements, so use a calculator and try to quantify them.The challenge facing those who decide to rent virtual dedicated server the user - to determine the tariff. Although there are no clear rules and formulas in choosing a VPS server tariff, we will try to clearly analyze several situations using our virtual dedicated servers as an example.
To begin with, it is worth noting an important fact: any project can be deployed and launched on almost any virtual server (of course, within the fundamental requirements for server software). The question when choosing a tariff is not whether or not the project will work on a specific server, in principle, but how quickly and stably it will work. The capacities of the rented VDS server are used to process user requests, manipulate information in the database, etc. Therefore, the more powerful the server, the more stable and faster the site or web service hosted on it works.
Project hosting requirements
Resource intensity of the project is determined by its requirements for the computing power of the server, as well as the estimated traffic and user activity, if we are talking about a public site. When starting a game server, a Forex server for trading on the exchange or 1C for accounting, navigate with required power you will be assisted by the relevant requirements specified for your specific software... When launching one or several sites at once, try to calculate their approximate traffic, since it is obvious that the same site consumes a completely different amount of resources at the moments when several tens or several hundred, or even thousands of people use it at the same time.
Tariff characteristics
Rates for renting FirstVDS virtual dedicated servers, regardless of the chosen OpenVZ or KVM virtualization, differ in three main indicators: the number of processor cores and their frequency, volume random access memory and allocated hard disk space.
With volume hard disk the easiest way is that you can always calculate exactly how much space is required for a particular project. For example, you are planning to launch a corporate social network, which will be used by 500 people, and it is planned to provide each of them with 100 MB of space for uploading photos, documents, etc. In this case, you will need 50 GB of disk space, plus space for your own social network files and utility software. For such a project, you can rent a server VDS-Overclocking or more powerful, but on VDS-Start you can no longer count, since it only includes 30 GB of disk space.
The other two parameters are more difficult to determine. This is due to the fact that the consumption random access memory and requirements for processor performance depend on the level of optimization source code project, applied programming methods, etc. Only a specialist who was directly involved in the development of a project can accurately estimate its resource intensity. Are you planning to use ready-made engines and scripts? Check out the white papers for an overview of their virtual server power requirements. You can call support at a toll-free number, and they will tell you what they are capable of and for what tasks each of the FirstVDS hosting plans is suitable.
VDS-Start
VDS-Start is a virtual dedicated server entry level from which they usually start small online projects(hence the name). It is able to provide fast functioning a simple website or blog with an attendance of up to several thousand people per day, provided that resource-intensive scripts and add-ons to engines are not used. For example, a blog on a "pure" Wordpress engine is guaranteed to work on such a server without any problems. This tariff is ideal for people who are just switching to using a virtual dedicated server from a regular hosting and plan to study how VDS / VPS technology works using a real example. You can also pay attention to our special super-cheap training server VDS-Warm-up, but its capacity is not enough to launch a full-fledged website with serious functionality - it is intended solely for acquaintance with the peculiarities of the operation of virtual servers.
VDS-Overclocking
Are you going to run enough large site on a serious engine, small social network or online store? Then you should pay attention to the virtual server VDS-Overclocking. Doubled in comparison with "Start" the amount of RAM and two processor cores allow it to provide fast work almost any web application. Also, this virtual VDS server can be rented for the simultaneous launch of several not too loaded sites. It also provides the required minimum performance for comfortable smooth operation of Forex trading robots.
VDS-Detachment
When planning the launch of a major online store or game server, you should consider a virtual server no less productive than VDS-Detachment. It is he who is the most demanded among our clients who launch own servers popular game Minecraft. This is due to the fact that online games are quite demanding on the amount of RAM, and their appetites grow with the increase in the number of players simultaneously present on the server. Two gigabytes in this case is the recommended volume for stable operation of a game server with online up to 50 people. In addition, on a rented VDS-Otryvka server, you can deploy most of the 1C services for accounting in order to organize a virtual workspace for employees of any company.
VDS-Fly away
As for the server VDS-Fly away, its performance is sufficient for the stable operation of even a large project. The servers of modern online games and sites with a traffic of over ten thousand people a day will feel great on it. Its characteristics also meet the recommended requirements. latest versions platform "1C Enterprise 8.3" (in particular, 4 GB of RAM), taking into account its use for the development of new configurations. If even such a tariff is not enough for a specific high-load Internet portal, you can always individually configure a special virtual server VDS-Forsage for yourself. As part of it, we offer up to eight processor cores with a frequency of over 2 GHz (2.4-2.6 GHz depending on the hosting server) each and up to 32 GB of RAM. Such capacity is guaranteed to be enough for the development of any online project with huge traffic until the moment when the question arises about the expediency of a change. VPS hosting and moving to your own purchased or rented physical server.
You will have your own personal work space, which will not need to be shared with other clients. It is characterized by a high speed of access to data - the Internet resource will surprise you with the speed of loading "heavy" elements. Virtual hosting of dedicated VPS / VDS servers is a profitable alternative to the usual remote hosting and has more flexibility in terms of settings.
How to choose a VPS server
Before buying a VDS / VPS server, you should highlight the needs of the project, as well as assess the likelihood of an increase in resources that will be used as the resource develops. Choose your operating systems carefully - each hosting has differences in the operating systems available. As for the choice of operating system, our company offers installation of CentOS, Debian or Ubuntu. Also, pay attention to specific tariffs that have different sizes of RAM. By default, Debian 7 is installed on all VPS servers.
Order VPS / VDS server- means getting your own territory for a serious project. In the person of our company, you will get a reliable partner who is able to provide high-quality service and round-the-clock support. Your site deserves to be the best, and we will provide a high-quality foundation for its loading!
For which sites is VPS / VDS suitable?
For projects with an average attendance of 10,000 users per day. Also, VPS should be considered for those who are very important for the stable operation of the site, since VPS eliminates problems with loading the site due to neighbors on the server.
Why are we using KVM virtualization?
Our company provides hosting based on KVM virtualization. It is suitable for both beginners and professionals who value productivity and efficiency. Virtual dedicated servers VPS / VDS with KVM virtualization are easy to use, edit and practically do not differ from a dedicated physical server.
Renting a VDS server based on this technology is your own virtual "world" with a separate operating system kernel! The owner will be able to customize or edit the virtual machine according to their preferences. The working environment will have its own RAM and space on an ultra-fast SSD disk.
If you already need to restore data from a backup, you will find all the necessary steps for this.
How can I contact support?
To contact support is simple. Our experts will do everything at your request in the shortest possible time.
How do I pay for VPS?
To pay for VPS, select the required tariff in the table and click the "Order" button. Then follow the instructions in the billing panel, indicating the necessary actions with the domain, your data and select the appropriate payment method. That's all! Your server will be activated immediately after payment.
The history of hosting is connected with the development of the Internet. In the 90s in different countries providers began to appear, specializing in hosting services in large numbers. Reliable and affordable Linux distributions have usually been used as operating systems for hosting servers.
Each virtual server emulates the work of a physical one, and the VPS customer gets it at his own disposal: he has administrator rights to install the OS and software, can install applications, work with files and perform other actions like the owner of a regular server. Opportunities are limited to dedicated resources only. In Russia, VPS services became widespread in the early 2000s.
VPS alternatives - virtual and physical hosting.
Shared hosting
The so-called virtual (shared) hosting, unlike VPS, provides limited customization and management options, and the user is allocated capacity on a pre-prepared server. He cannot change the allocated resources, install additional software, change the server settings. Only your content is allowed to change.The resources of a physical server are shared among its users, so resources may become scarce during peak loads. Usually shared hosting is suitable for small projects and tasks that do not require significant resources and high level security.
Unlike regular virtual hosting, a VPS / VDS virtual server usually provides protection against DDoS attacks, backup data, each virtual server has its own IP address, and if necessary, you can get additional IP addresses, while with shared hosting, several sites often use the same IP address.
A virtual dedicated server does not have the limitations of a virtual hosting. You can create any number of sites, databases, domain zones, etc. There is a limitation on physical resources, but the VPS is guaranteed to receive them, while on shared hosting there is no such guarantee. As already noted, the VPS owner has full access to the system and root user rights, can install any software, and with shared hosting, this can only be done by the provider.
However, the cost of renting a virtual dedicated server is usually higher than the cost of shared hosting, but significantly lower than renting a comparable physical server.
Physical hosting
The company providing hosting services (hoster) is responsible for the reliability and quality of connecting servers to the network, their technical support, maintenance, equipment modernization, data backup, security, etc. Many users are satisfied with such a service, but what if the customer needs to install special software, manage it and generally be the complete owner of his site?The solution is to rent server equipment with partial management or hosting with the installation of a client's server at the provider's site. With high requirements for project resources, until a certain time, there was one option - placement on dedicated physical servers: rented, dedicated (Dedicated) or on the customer's equipment installed at the provider's site (Colocation).
Several large data centers have been built in Moscow with support for uninterruptible power supply, choice necessary equipment, cooling, monitoring and security systems. This type of service is offered by many large providers, but it is quite expensive.
A dedicated server is a separate physical server in a data center. Its owner has access to all the resources of the server and the possibilities of its configuration. He can install any software on it, has access to all server devices, and can change the operating system. If the hoster is responsible for updating the operating system and installed software during shared hosting, then with a dedicated server it is the owner's responsibility.
But back to VDS / VPS. This type of service has been actively developing for many years and is popular with clients whose sites or projects have outgrown the capabilities of shared hosting, but do not require a dedicated server.
The emergence of VPS services on the hosting market has given many users the opportunity to choose the option that is more suitable for their tasks at a more affordable price.
Features and benefits of VDS / VPS
Low cost with good management capabilities of your services is the advantage of a VPS. Another advantage is simple scalability: you can easily add compute resources, memory or storage capacity. These are the properties of a typical cloud service, and today VPS, as a rule, is an IaaS (infrastructure as a service) service in terms of its characteristics. On the other hand, shared storage and communication channels mean that some customers can abuse resources at the expense of others.As already noted, the basis of this service is server virtualization. Several types of virtualization can be offered to VPS customers, for example, OpenVZ (at the operating system level) or KVM (hardware).
Virtualization technology is one of the important factors choice of a virtual server: software (virtualization at the operating system kernel level) or hardware (complete isolation, managed by the hypervisor). In the first case, one common system kernel and the type of OS chosen by the provider are used: for Linux server - CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, etc., for Windows VDS - the same version of Windows.
All virtualization systems have their own advantages and disadvantages. Losses for virtualization are usually estimated at 5-10% of total resources, but it is difficult to accurately calculate them - it depends on many factors. One of the long-standing leaders among virtual dedicated server environments is Virtuozzo technology.
In the case of Virtuozzo for the application, everything looks like it runs on the same machine, so you can perform resource-intensive tasks. Overhead losses for virtualization are small and amount, according to developers, 1-2%.
In OpenVZ, Virtuozzo, VDSmanager software virtualization. Its advantages are speed of work, low cost. Disadvantage: fuzzy delineation of resources, high load may affect neighbors. If other VPSs are idle, then an actively working virtual server can use all unused capacities, however, when another VPS is activated, the resources are "cut down" according to the specified parameters. They can vary significantly for different VPSs.
Plus: by using a single OS and memory, virtualization at the OS level provides the highest density ( maximum amount containers - virtual servers) on the server.
OpenVZ creates isolated copies of the operating system (Virtual Environments, VE) on a physical server. Since virtual servers use a common Linux kernel, the customer's choice of OS is limited. This is usually Ubuntu, Debian, or CentOS. This technology characterized by high performance, ease of use and server management.
Full virtualization (Xen, KVM and Hyper-V technologies) is the physical separation of the kernel, where each participant can install the required OS. It is considered to be more reliable because virtual servers are completely isolated from each other, a wider choice of OS. Cons: takes longer to install or reboot the OS, higher fees.
For example, in KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) - the so-called hardware virtualization. It creates a completely isolated analogue of a physical server with its own OS kernel. Each such server is allocated its own area in RAM and capacity on disk, LAN card... In this case, it is possible to install any OS, but the scaling of resources is usually limited, and the customer does not always have the ability to change the number of CPU cores or the capacity of RAM. And this service is more expensive.
What to choose?
VPS is often used for hosting sites, developing and testing software, for hosting content management systems - CMS (WordPress, Drupal, Joomla), especially for small companies that cannot afford to buy or rent a physical server.
VPS is a popular type of hosting as it provides a reasonable balance between price and features for most website and application owners.
Many hosters provide VPS services today. The possibilities, price characteristics and tasks that can be solved using this type of service are very diverse. Each company providing VPS services to clients offers a different set of options. These services can be supplemented by related cloud services, management and support services, security, including protection against DDoS attacks, software licenses. Pricing varies greatly depending on the support and administration package.
A physical dedicated server is much more expensive than a virtual dedicated server, although, in addition to the resources provided, VPS is almost in no way inferior to it. The only exception is the use of applications that require direct access to the equipment. Creation of a VPS server is completed in minutes, and the process itself can be automated.
Virtual servers can be provided without support (this option is cheaper, but you cannot do without knowledge of OS and application administration) or with support (when you do not need to maintain the server yourself). How to choose a virtual server? This is determined by the budget and needs, the nature of the tasks to be solved and the projects being implemented.
There are many offers of this service on the Russian market. According to a survey of service providers conducted by OSP Data, the most affordable cloud service for corporate clients it is virtual servers that remain - they are present in the list of offers of nine out of every ten providers (92.3%). In terms of popularity among customers, virtual servers occupy the second position after Email: this service is used by only more than a third of survey participants - 37.3%.
Many hosting providers provide a virtual server service under Windows control, focusing on the stability of the work, compliance with the declared parameters of the speed of the disk subsystem (for which they began to use flash arrays) and CPU, the reliability of the Internet connection. The desire to optimize costs leads to an increase in the popularity of IT outsourcing in general, and in particular - VPS and IaaS services. According to J’son & Partners Consulting, the volume Russian market IaaS by 2018 will grow to 7 billion rubles, despite the fact that in 2014 it was at the level of 2.5 billion. The average annual growth will be about 30%.
VPS hosting is provided in Russia by dozens and even hundreds of hosting providers. True, the results of the Timeweb monitoring carried out in April 2016 showed that the number of sites in Russia with more than 100 visits per day decreased from 301,128 in October 2015 to 270,287 sites in March 2016. This is a negative factor, because in most cases VPS is used to host sites.
Among virtualization hypervisors, according to surveys, VMware ESXi (57%) is in the lead, Microsoft Hyper-V is in second place (19%), third place is shared by "other virtualization tools" (9%), the fourth is Parallels, Citrix Xen and KVM ( 5% each). A couple of years ago, VMware's share was over 80%. How did Hyper-V manage to squeeze out a competitor? Let's consider some of the advantages of this technology when applied to a VPS.
Microsoft Hyper-V: Benefits and Features
Hyper-V virtualization technology is available as standalone free Microsoft Hyper-V Server software or as part of the OS Windows Server 2012. It is based on a 64-bit hypervisor, separate from the main OS Windows Server 2012. Each guest OS runs with its own kernel and virtual resources allocated by the hypervisor, which allows you to run different operating systems on the same physical server. This technology guarantees that all declared resources will be available to the client at any time, regardless of the activity of the neighbors on the server. The main difference between Hyper-V hosting and a regular VPS is that it is completely isolated from others. virtual machines hardware resources.Administrator rights allow the owner of a virtual server to configure the system, create users and install software as on a physical server. Hyper-V VPS is a complete analogue of the "iron" server in terms of administration and configuration. You can install any OS, Windows or Linux, customize them at your discretion. In the same way, you can install any additional software, configure it, configure such hardware resources as the amount of RAM, disk space or IP addresses. Unlike VPS hosting, Hyper-V hosting guarantees the ability to scale resources for sites or applications, and scaling occurs on the fly, without stopping the service.
The use of such a virtual server is not limited to hosting sites. It can serve any other services as well, such as a database server,
VDS(Virtual Dedicated Server) - virtual dedicated server. VDS virtualization technology allows you to allocate limits physical memory, processor load and physical space, emulating the operation of a separate physical server. All VDS servers are separated from each other, which makes it possible to guarantee the use of dedicated resources.
How is VDS rental different from shared hosting?
The main difference between VDS rental and virtual (shared) hosting is the guaranteed allocation of physical limits and the ability to install and use any operating system and software settings. The owner of a VDS virtual server gets root access, its own IP address and complete isolation from other clients on the server, in contrast to virtual hosting, where clients share the IP address and server resources. The number of hosted sites, created databases, FTP or SSH users is limited only by the resources of the rented VDS.
The only drawback is the need to administer a virtual dedicated server.
VDS rental versus a physical server.
Renting a VDS is much cheaper than a physical server, allowing you to select the equipment configuration for a specific task. VDS virtualization technology allows you to quickly and painlessly scale resources: increasing the RAM size, the number of cores and the amount of disk space as needed. An important addition is the ability to reboot the rented server through the built-in functionality in your personal account.
KVM virtualization technology
As a virtualization technology, we use the KVM Kernel-based Virtual Machine, which allows you to configure several independent virtual dedicated servers within one operating system, with an independent set of applications. This VDS rental technology is distinguished by high performance, ease of management and high security. Any operating system can be installed and run on a dedicated server: Debian, CentOS, Ubuntu and others.
Reasons for switching to VDS
The main reason for switching to a virtual dedicated server is the insufficient amount of allocated resources for the site to work on shared hosting. The virtual hosting format itself assumes the sharing of server resources; all server settings are standardized, which excludes customization of software settings for a specific project. Switching to a VDS server allows you to isolate your project from other clients, get a separate IP address, full root access, independently define software settings and increase server resources as needed.
