Guidelines for Selecting Between VPS Hosting and Cloud Hosting

Charles, a guest contributor this week, does a little hosting comparison for us.

Many business owners looking for a suitable web hosting solution are torn between Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting and cloud hosting. Here are some guidelines which will help you make an informed choice.

1. Scalability and flexibility

As long as the hosted machine has the necessary resources, the VPS server can upgrade processor speed, disk space and memory immediately. However, if the resources are limited, the site will have to be transferred to a different machine. This transfer is likely to result in server downtime. On the other hand, cloud servers allow unlimited scaling. Processor speed, memory and bandwidth can be increased with no downtime. Since users only pay for what they use, cloud hosting can help businesses to significantly lower their costs.

2. Control, security and optimization

VPS servers store information in a specific hard drive and allow installation of antivirus programs and firewalls. This gives users a high level of control over the server’s resources. However, when it comes to the cloud, data is stored across a network of virtual servers. As a result, the user has no control over the security of their information. Therefore, VPS hosting is ideal for anyone who wants to retain control over the server.

3. High availability

Saving data on more than one disk is known as redundancy. Cloud servers offer full redundancy, meaning that if one server fails, data is immediately transferred to another sever. This ensures that there is practically no downtime. However, when a VPS server goes down, your site goes down as well. Even if you have backed up your information, it might take some time before you get back online. Therefore, if your site has to be accessible all through, it would be advisable to go for the cloud server. However, if you don’t mind being down once in a while, you could consider the VPS option.

4. Data protection

VPS servers store data on one or two hard disks, which increases the risk of losing your information in case of server failure. Cloud solutions, on the other hand, usually store your data in five or more disks. This means that your chances of losing data due to server failure are significantly lower. However, both VPS and cloud servers have enough capacity to allow you to make frequent backups.

5. Performance

Since VPS servers are used by several users, their performance could be slowed down significantly during periods of high use. For instance, if everyone decides to access information at the same time, the hard drive will not be able to run applications fast enough. As a result, this increases the chances of having a time out. However, cloud servers don’t store information on a single machine. Since the cloud has the capacity to scale up instantly during periods of high use, the chances of a slow response time are significantly lowered.

With VPS servers, your usage is limited to what you have paid for. However, cloud servers allow you to increase your usage as the need arises. Since the resources are unlimited, you can use as much as you want. Therefore, for businesses which experience occasional spikes in traffic and require lots of resources, the cloud server would be the best choice.

6. Billing options

For businesses that would want to regulate their expenditure on hosting services, it would be advisable to go with VPS hosting. VPS hosting providers charge a fixed monthly fee, which is determined by the amount of resources bought. However, this hosting solution is suitable only when traffic is relatively predictable. On the other hand, the charges for cloud hosting fluctuate based on the amount of resources used at any one time. With this billing system, cloud hosting usually ends up being more affordable than VPS hosting.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the choice between Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting and cloud hosting should to be based on the business needs, budget, level of control required and server performance requirements. To find out what kind of hosting would be most suitable for your site, observe it over a period of time. If the amount of resources used is fairly predictable, you could opt for VPS hosting. However, if the need for resources keeps fluctuating, a cloud server would be a better choice.

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Charles Mburugu writes about anhosting reviews as well as midphase offers.  He often contributes to tech blogs which cover topics such internet marketing, web hosting, social media, web development and domain names. Of late, he has been contributing to blogs such as Free Blog Help. Besides writing, Charles is also passionate about music.