A Cloud VPS is an incredibly affordable cloud computing solution for anyone looking for on-demand, high-performance computing power. No matter which flavor of operating system you require, whether that’s Windows, FreeBSD, or Linux-based, or a bespoke application server running NodeJS, Joomla or WordPress – VPS allows you to deploy in seconds. A VPS is a great option and a hugely popular solution for all types of businesses.
One of the biggest appeals of a VPS is the cost savings of operating the server. When you factor in the hardware performance and the licensing cost model, it is impossible to beat the price of a VPS when compared to building the server yourself. A typical, enterprise-ready server will likely cost in excess of $10,000, and that is just for the basic hardware. Then, you are looking at significant licensing costs if you opt for Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Linux, or any consumer licensed application, such as Microsoft SQL Server or cPanel.
You also need to factor in the cost of running the server. You will likely need a data center or comms room to host the server, and costs might be incurred for leasing rack space and for powering and cooling the server. In addition to this, there are costs for backups, storage, replication, disaster recovery – not to mention the costs of maintenance and technical support if something goes wrong. It’s clear to see how the costs can quickly spin out of control if you opt for the do-it-yourself approach.
The increased scalability options of a VPS is another reason why they are so popular. Most VPS users start on a modestly powered VPS. Correctly provisioning your server will save money, and a VPS can be scaled up as needed.
If a customer website hosted on a VPS generates unprecedented growth, there is always the option to increase CPU, memory, and storage on the VPS. Upgrading to a server plan with multiple CPU sockets or stacks of memory will often mitigate resource requirements.
If you operate a microservices environment, you could simply deploy a like-for-for server and scale-out, instead of up. Only a few configuration amendments are required to create a clustered service. Whichever way you choose to scale, it will be significantly cheaper than buying and building additional server resources by yourself.
The reliability of a cloud-based VPS is another major cost-saving factor. The downtime of any business server costs money. You may potentially lose revenue, time and you may even lose customers to a competitor. With a VPS, the downtime is next to zero. Some service providers even offer a 100% guaranteed uptime service level agreement.
If you choose an ultra-reliable provider and you incorporate a DevOps continuous integration and continuous delivery (CICD) strategy, you can create a resilient, upgradeable and guaranteed revenue stream that never goes down.
Another distinctive advantage of VPS hosting is the capability of including backups and snapshots for data protection. These services bring a number of cost savings initiatives. Backup services for a VPS are often a one-click service add-on. Normally, these services require zero downtime to set up.
What makes it so affordable is that the backup service is already live as part of the VPS hosting capabilities,; there is no need to buy new hardware or license and install backup software/agents. Importantly, there is no need to create a complex backup schedule or hire backup engineers to manage the backups day-to-day.
With a VPS, you simply pay for the storage used by the backup. Hosting providers usually charge per 1GB of data; more is charged if you choose to replicate the data to another location for added protection, but the cost per gigabyte is so small it only adds a tiny amount to your invoice.
Snapshots are slightly different as they offer more agility with how you use the point-in-time save of your server. The snapshot can be used in DR scenarios or testing occasions when a like-for-like copy of the server is needed.
Snapshots can be a manual or automated process, but like backups, you only pay per gigabyte. In most scenarios snapshots are tiny in size, but be mindful; if you are snapshotting database servers or file servers, the snapshots can be very large, and they will grow larger every time a snapshot is taken.
