In the course of the progress in the field of modern technology and the rapidly growing professional field of the "digital nomads", the option of a virtual server (VPS) is quite interesting. With it, you are not bound to a fixed location; you may save a lot of purchase and maintenance costs, and above all time. And time is one of the only things that cannot be easily offset by other goods.
A VPS is definitely worth considering.
Basics: What is a server anyway?
For further understanding it should first be described what a server is.
In English a server is a "servant/servant" and in a broader sense also "service". This server provides DataThis will provide you with programs or other resources that other computers can then access.
Again, one has to differentiate. Either the server is a computer (host) on which other servers (clients) run. In this case the server provides hardware that is used by others.
Or the server is a program (client) that communicates with the computer or program (client) that accesses it and thus provides it with data, other programs and other services.
The Virtual Server
A VPS, also known as a "virtual private server" or "vserver", does basically the same thing as described above.
If you set up such a server, you first assign it a certain amount of memory and it receives a fixed CPU share or how high the computing power of the server should be.
This means that no additional hardware is required for the provision and use of this VPS, but can simply be set up on top of the existing hardware. The hardware used for this does not really exist, but is provided by the superordinate system (host).
This can also be derived from the name: it is a visualization of the system.
Now the question arises about the usability of a virtual server.
The question can be answered quite simply: Exactly the same as for a "normal" server.
The difference between the two systems is on the one hand the price. If you want to acquire a "real" and not a virtual server, you first have to buy the necessary hardware.
It is therefore advisable to rent the VPS from a third party provider. This provider will then provide you with the desired capacity. For example, if you run an online shop and you notice that you have more and more visitors on your site over time, you can now flexibly increase your payload.
Advantages of the Virtual Server
If you want to fall back on such a VPS, this system has the advantage that you can control everything from one central point and are therefore theoretically geographically independent and can maintain your server from anywhere in the world. So if you are for example somebody who finances his living through the internet, this is an ideal solution compared to a stationary server.
Another advantage is that it is possible to determine in advance how many resources the VPS should consume from the actual computer. Depending on the purpose of the VPS, this will be larger or smaller and therefore the costs are comparable.
Furthermore, when you rent a VPS server, you save not only on the purchase costs, but also on the maintenance and service costs.
In general, the use of a VPS is recommended to those who already have a certain amount of visitors on their websites - a beginner can also start with simpler solutions (e.g. shared web hosting).
A VPS can be compared to a virtual machine (VM), where the program is also allocated a certain amount of memory and computing capacity. Everything that happens in this system - i.e. changes settings, completely destroys the system - has no influence on the main system, i.e. the operating system on which everything runs.
This is not much different with the virtual server. This is also one of the advantages of the virtual version. Each VPS has its own operating system. If you use several games of a rented server and you suffer malware attacks on one of the VPSs, then only this system is affected and your other servers remain unaffected.
In short, the Virtual Server does basically the same as a standard server. However, a big advantage of this is the shielding of the system. Not all data is affected as soon as a system is attacked. You also save time that you would have had to spend on maintenance for the latter, or the money to pay someone to do it for you.
