A virtual private server (VPS) provides the same benefits of a dedicated
server at a lower cost. The cost savings comes from not having to purchase
a physical machine or pay monthly fees to lease a dedicated box. But, from
your end, you cannot tell the difference between a dedicated server and a
virtual private server. A VPS provides root access, reboot capability,
dedicated (virtual) hard drive with a complete UNIX (Linux or FreeBSD)
filesystem, dedicated memory (RAM), IP addresses, and much more.
How is this possible? Easy. In fact, this technology has been available on
mainframe computing systems for over 20 years. The idea was to buy one
very, very powerful dedicated mainframe machine, and to "slice it up" into
many virtual machines, each running their own operating system. Each
customer gets one virtual machine, which looks, feels and acts like their own
dedicated server.
Recently, technological advances have allowed this same concept to be
deployed on common Linux and FreeBSD systems running on x86 architecture.
We provide the "mainframe" and you buy the virtual machine, at a significant
cost savings to buying a dedicated machine of the same power.
A VPS is also commonly known as a Virtual Dedicated Server, or VDS for
short.
What is a VPS?
