What Should I Choose in 2015 - Cloud Hosting VS VPS Hosting?

This article was originally published on 1/5/14

The countdown for 2015 has already begun and so are the businesses eager to roll out new strategies and technical innovations with the New Year. Especially the entrepreneurs. 2014 has been a year of many ups and downs for most ventures due to the various algorithm updates rolled out by the search giant. 

Yet, overall 2014 has been a successful year for many companies that focused on adaptation to the technological shifts. 2015 too would be a year when many ventures would be a part of this transition – either to sustain or compete in the competitive market. Learning and recruiting people with new skills and implementing new tactics would be vital look-out next year.

Considering the evolution in technology, virtualization, or rather cloud-based virtualization and remote management can be a key consideration for businesses that haven’t upgraded their IT to it yet. With the ever-increasing number of online stores and eCommerce sites, a strong emphasis would be given to scalable services – preferably automatic scaling.

2014 indeed saw growth in the adoption of cloud technology and mobile platform for business websites, moreover it’s also proved beneficial not just to buyers but also to retailers using eCommerce to run their operations. Talking about hosting, the term ‘cloud computing or cloud hosting’ was heard from almost every corner of the Industry. Due to the consistent advancements in the area of virtualization and remote operations, conventional organizations and new firms are increasingly opting for similar hosting solutions today.

Let’s take a sneak peek at the two types of virtualization solutions that we have access to today.

Cloud Hosting: Does it Make Sense? 

From a cost perspective, there is no doubt that cloud hosting is beginning to make a lot more sense for many website developers. They understand that they need to do something about getting their websites up, and the best way to make it happen is to use cloud hosting. 

It is so cost-effective because there are now plenty of services that offer cloud hosting to those who need it. You don’t really need to shop around for this service in the ways that you used to, and the costs have come down considerably as the infrastructure has improved. Thus, you may want to look into this as a possible way to spend some of your time and resources.

Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting –

VPS in simple terms is where a single physical server is divided into smaller virtual servers using virtualization technology. For that purpose, VMWare and HyperV (hardware hypervisors) are the two technologies that actually made a mark in 2014. Having a physical dedicated server virtualized using one of the hypervisors, allows the creation of multiple servers that inherit the properties of the base server - each acting as a dedicated server in itself (in a virtual environment).

One of the major benefits of VPS hosting is, that dedicated resources can be assigned to the virtual machines. Much similar to that of a physical server.

Pros –

• It offers flexibility along with complete control/root access to the server.

• VPS is typically less expensive as compared to cloud hosting.

• The user can modify the settings on the server to adjust it according to the requirements.

• Through a shared environment, VPS clients can take leverage of dedicated environments with specific resource allocations.

• With VPS hosting, dedicated IPs can be allocated to each account.

• Unless it is a hardware failure, any virtual server is affected and exposed to downtime, the other servers aren’t affected.

• As users get root access to the particular server, one can choose the operating system and install any required software which makes it quite easy to manage the VPS.

Cons –

• If there is any problem with the VPS server and needs maintenance or rebooting or has a hard drive error then all accounts hosted on it would face downtime.

• Despite the inheritance of characteristics of a dedicated server, computing resources of the physical server are still distributed across VPS accounts. Hence, ill operations run by a neighboring account can pose an impact on your server.

• Though one can choose an operating system (OS) only one OS can run on each physical server.

• Storage space on each server is limited and so when your VPS reaches the maximum capacity, arrangements for additional space or migration to new hardware remain the only option. Which again means downtime.

Cloud Server Hosting  –

Slightly an enhanced version of virtualization, a cloud server makes use of multiple servers which are connected together in a single network – known as a cluster which is backed by RAID configurations. Users would still have root access to the Virtual machine, but in this case, the resources are pulled from a massive pool and released back when unused.

Pros – 

• Cloud hosting offers greater flexibility as it is extended to multiple physical machines pooling in their resources into one. The storage space as well as the other resources can be scaled up/down as per requirements.

• If any physical server runs down or fails, the virtual machines or VMs have transported automatically to other servers within the same cluster. Hence avoiding the downtime resulting in the cloud hosting being more reliable.

• Since a VM uses resources from a massive pool, the question of running out of it is negligible. This helps ensure optimum performance – even during peak hours.

• Each client on the cloud has the privilege to choose the operating system individually.

• Though a load of other cloud customers increases, the computing resources – RAM, CPU performance, and bandwidth being pooled in by multiple physical servers, result in a near unlimited supply of resources.

• The cloud server is easier to suffice custom requirements. It means clients can choose the OS, firewall, control panels, and other applications.

Cons –

• There’s only one disadvantage of cloud in comparison to a VPS, ie, it's a little more expensive.

As a matter of fact, both the solutions have been popular in the year 2014 despite their individual benefits and demerits. Where VPSs were opted for by websites for whom scalability and up-time weren’t much of a concern, while on the other hand, the sites that did require them opted for cloud solutions. A few service providers even offered a pay-per-use billing model in Cloud, where users would only pay for the resources that their sites/applications have actually used.

With further work being put into the development of the Cloud, and an increasing volume of applications depending more on the cloud, 2015 is expected to be more of a cloud-friendly year.