When is it Time to Upgrade Your VPS Hosting
Moving from shared hosting to a Virtual Private Server (VPS) is likely one of the highlights of a website owner’s digital journey. These advanced server plans are robust, feature-packed, and performance-optimized.
Yet, even when you’ve moved to VPS, there are more upgrade options if you need them.
Shared vs VPS Hosting Overview
Shared hosting is typically the starting point for most website owners. These hosting accounts are readily available at a wide range of price points.
More importantly, they are incredibly easy to manage.
Today, many shared hosting accounts pack an impressive arsenal of tools to help with website creation and maintenance. These options range from website builders to database handlers and even one-click application installers.
However, shared hosting comes with its inherent vulnerabilities and limitations. This is why running more complex websites, high-traffic pages, or mission-critical sites is not really recommended on a shared server.
As the name implies, this type of hosting allows many users to co-exist on a single physical server. Each machine has a fixed amount of essential resources like processing power (CPU), memory (RAM), storage space, and bandwidth.
Here is a key issue – as many as several hundred websites may be competing for a limited amount of resources at any given time.
Those resources are vital for your website. If a request comes for one of your pages and resources aren’t available – your visitors will experience slow load times or even see your site as inaccessible. Such delays are not only frustrating but may deter users from ever coming back to your page again.
There is an easy solution, though.
With VPS hosting, users still populate the same physical server but with some key differences. Every VPS account exists in an isolated space, thanks to advanced virtualization technology. The enclosed “bubble” comes with a dedicated set of resources.
The on-demand availability of resources means much more reliable website operations. Unless your site experiences huge traffic spikes – pages can easily load at any time.
VPS hosting is all about flexibility and freedom. You get to choose exactly how your server is configured, from the Operating System (OS) to the exact software applications that will run on it.
The VPS account isolation leads to better security as well. Even with multiple accounts still sharing a physical server, the isolation means that what happens on other accounts won’t be able to affect yours.
Finally, VPS solutions are highly scalable, meaning you can adjust the amount of resources available to you at any time.
This flexibility allows for two key advantages.
The first is much better long-term viability since you can increase resources as your site grows. The second is greater control over the resources you need. You can choose to scale up individual resource types, paying only for those you utilize.
Of course, all this comes with the premise that you have some technical competency to handle a VPS plan. Unless you are working with а Managed VPS, you will need to configure the server from the ground up on your own.
Best VPS Use Cases
Since VPS plans generally cost more than shared hosting, when exactly should you use them?
Knowing the power of virtual servers, these plans are more suited to traffic-demanding websites or those needing greater security and reliability. Some examples of the common VPS use cases include:
Ecommerce Websites
Ecommerce projects have to be able to handle high visitor volumes while guaranteeing the security of the visitor’s private details. That includes even online shops that do not necessarily process customer personal or financial data. Such requirements make them a perfect fit for VPS hosting.
Web Applications
Running web applications will almost always use more hosting resources compared to static websites. The dedicated resources that come with VPS plans give application-driven sites greater reliability and supreme performance.
News Portals
When we talk about sites that need to serve large volumes of data in a short timespan, news portals are among the highest resource consumers. VPS plans are well-suited to manage this level of traffic efficiently.
Business Websites
Although business sites may not always have high bandwidth consumption, they can benefit from the greater reliability and security of VPS solutions. Company websites that perform poorly or crash can result in significant brand damage.
Popular Personal Blogs
Most personal blogs are non-commercial but can become incredibly popular with the right ideas and promotion. Shared hosting isn’t generally recommended when your web project starts growing. In cases like this, moving your site to VPS can be unavoidable.
When to Upgrade Your Hosting to VPS?
If you’ve been on shared hosting for some time, you may be asking yourself – When should I upgrade my hosting plan?
There aren’t any hard-set rules to this, but monitoring your website performance can give you some good indications.
Some reasons why you might need to upgrade your hosting plan include:
- Slow Performance and Load Times – Running well-optimized websites means you can quickly tell when something goes wrong. If your site starts to perform erratically or takes longer than usual to load – chances are that you’re not getting sufficient resources.
- Security Breaches – While direct attacks on your shared hosting plan are up to you to mitigate, you can’t control what happens to your neighbors on the same server. If you notice poor performance for no apparent reason, it may be due to security breaches on other accounts.
- Not Enough Storage – Whether it be a personal computer or web hosting, storage space tends to run out over time, even if you regularly clean up your files. There are limits to how far you can upgrade shared hosting, and when you hit those – a VPS is your next logical step up.
- Need for a Customized Environment – If you want to run a site with specific functionalities, you may need to opt for VPS right away. Most shared hosting plans come with a standard setup, so only a virtual server will allow you to set up the exact configuration required.
- Your Business is Growing – As your website traffic grows – so does the amount of resources required to handle the load. If you don’t provide enough resources, you may start losing the traffic you’ve spent so much effort to gain.
How to Upgrade Your VPS with ScalaHosting?
If you’re already on a VPS plan and find you need even more resources – remember that you can always provision for more. With Scala, you can generally adjust your resource allocation with a few button clicks.
Do note, though – the exact methods may vary from host to host. At ScalaHosting, upgrading your VPS can be done directly from your client administration dashboard.
To upgrade any of your allocated resources, simply follow this process:
Step 1. Log in to your ScalaHosting VPS Customer Account
Step 2. Click on the dropdown arrow next to the Manage button on the VPS plan you wish to upgrade. Next, select Resources and Options.
Step 3. From the list of resources and services, choose which one you wish to change. Once you’ve selected the proper areas to upgrade, click Continue.
That’s all there is to it – simple, right?
You can choose to scale your resources up or down at any time. This flexibility is a big part of what makes VPS hosting so scalable and cost-effective. Since resource allocation is so quick, you won’t have to overprovision your virtual server account and pay more than what you’re using.
Conclusion
Although VPS plans are a fantastic option, server management is something not everyone is prepared to manage. In cases like this, it may be good to consider going for Managed VPS options instead.
These plans are slightly more expensive out-the-box but come with the professional help of your web hosting provider.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is VPS faster than shared hosting?
VPS plans are almost always faster and more accessible than shared hosting plans. You won’t have to worry about queuing for the resources needed to load web pages and can serve visitor requests at any time.
Can I upgrade my hosting plan?
Yes, you can. You can upgrade shared hosting plans by simply submitting a ticket to your service provider. When it comes to VPS plans – you can either upgrade them on your own via your hosting control panel or ask your host to assist.
Which is better – VPS or a dedicated server?
Out-the-box, VPS solutions are much more cost-efficient than dedicated servers. They offer many of the same benefits, but you only pay for the resources needed. In comparison, dedicated servers have to be rented in their entirety, even if you aren’t fully utilizing them.
