What Is a VPS and What Can It Do for My Business?

As our businesses grow and start to take advantage of more technologies, the idea of having a VPS might come as a surprise, especially in a world where cloud services are dominating most workflows. A VPS, otherwise known as a virtual private server, often serves as a solution that sits between managed services and having your dedicated server in the office. For some people, that sentence might not make any sense–but don’t worry, we’re here to simplify things and help you understand how to take advantage of a VPS.

What exactly is a VPS?

A virtual private server is essentially a virtual machine that is sold and operated by a company. You’re essentially renting a virtual server from another business. You can think of it as renting a computer in a remote location, but most cheap VPS services tend to split the bandwidth and computing power with a number of other users. You can think of a VPS as a computer that you have access to in a different location.

To many people, this doesn’t sound very interesting and there isn’t much to talk about. While comparing it to a virtual computer is accurate, it doesn’t paint a picture of what a VPS is capable of.

What can a VPS do for my company?

So to help you understand what a VPS is capable of, let’s take a look at what it can do for your business.

• Allows you to take control of your website hosting. A lot of businesses rely on web hosts that share your bandwidth and computing power with other clients. This means that you’re sharing a connection and thus can be interrupted if you’re not careful. With a VPS, you can take control of your web host which leads to more customization, faster work times and more interesting developments.

• You can save a surprising amount of money on business costs. A VPS is often seen as a very cheap alternative to actually owning a server, meaning you can save a serious amount of money. But let’s be honest, how many people need their own servers? For those that do own a small server for their business, a VPS can actually be more expensive. However, where it shines is in its long-term cost savings since you no longer have to rely on others to help you manage your networked technologies.

• It offers better reliability since you’re leaning on your own resources. One of the issues with working with another company for managed IT services is that they might not always listen to you. They might be slow when answering support tickets or they could be difficult to get along with. With a VPS, you can just rely on your own staff members instead.

  While a VPS can seem like a technical thing that most business owners don’t need to concern themselves with, it can be important to learn how servers work, how they affect your business and the benefits that a VPS can bring despite its low costs.