Cloud Hosting

If you have any questions after looking through our Cloud information, please contact our Sales Team by email, or by telephone on 0808 180 1880

VPS vs VDS vs Cloud

Hostway’s virtualised offerings – VPS, VDS and Cloud Solutions – each offer something different. If you’re not sure which of our virtualized platforms suits best, this page is intended to help you decide.

‘VPS’ (Virtual Private Servers) and ‘VDS’ (Virtual Dedicated Servers) are sometimes used interchangeably, but in fact the two are strategically different in terms of their application in the business context, and consequently in terms of the service levels and functionality customers can expect. While similar in concept (virtualisation of the hardware layer provides the basis of both platforms), the main difference between Hostway VPS and VDS lies in the virtualisation platform each uses (ie Parallels Virtuozzo 4 versus VMware ESXi).

Cloud Solutions meanwhile represent the most dynamic solution available, offering as they do 100% Hardware Redundancy, real-time migration/failover at near zero downtime, and fully scalable, ‘on-demand’ resources.

1. VPS Technology

Our Virtuozzo based VPS environments are typically set up with all the virtual machines on a physical server sharing a single instance of the same operating system. This limits users’ control over their virtual environment settings.

One single operating system (OS) environment exists on a host server that is shared by all virtual OS instances
Virtual Machines (VMs) are created as isolated environments
Only software settings are independent
Changes to hardware settings (such as memory or network details) or OS versions (through patches or updates) is not allowed
Physical resources are shared (CPU, memory, hard drive), allowing VMs to “burst” resources (to use more resources during periods of high loads than allotted)

2. VDS Technology

Hostway’s VDS environment employs enterprise-level virtualization techniques (VMware ESXi) where Virtual Machines or “guests” have fully independent Dedicated operating systems, providing more control and flexibility and greater levels of reliability and performance than VPS.

VDS environments are geared towards more robust, resource-intensive applications but, while based on similar technology to Cloud Services, they do not offer the dynamic redundancy and practical functionalities that Cloud services do. Consequently, this type of solution is comparatively cheaper, and offers an entry point into enterprise-level Virtualisation.

Multiple independent OS’s for each VM
Completely separate VM for each user
No sharing of physical resources (CPU, memory, hard drive), all resources are physically allocated to VMs, not allowing VMs to “burst” resources
Much higher guaranteed hardware performance (CPU, memory, hard drive)
Recommended for more robust, resource intensive applications and databases
More reliable and secure, while providing users with more control
Entry point into enterprise-level Virtualisation

3. Cloud Hosting

An increasing number of organizations require the ultimate in stability and security for their hosted business environments, making independent, fully isolated operating systems essential.

Cloud Solutions not only represent a more effient use of resources than typical physical servers, they also allow you to build in redundancy far more easily, giving you greater reliability within the hosted solution.

Cloud environments are geared towards High Availability for critical Enterprise applications and databases, as well as ‘on demand’ computing and disaster recovery.

100% hardware Redundancy
Rapidly scalable CPU, RAM and Disk resources
Dynamic Resource Scheduling intelligently allocates available resources
vMotion lends the ability to move and duplicate servers in realtime, with little or no downtime
Multiple independent OS’s for each VM
Completely separate VM for each user
No sharing of physical resources (CPU, memory, hard drive), all resources are physically allocated to VMs, not allowing VMs to “burst” resources
Much higher guaranteed hardware performance (CPU, memory, hard drive)
Full High Availability services for critical Enterprise applications and databases

VPS vs VDS vs Coud – what do i need?

Here is a simple table we’ve put together to illustrate the key differences.

Virtualized Infrastructure – Quick Reference Table

Solution	Hypervisor Platform	Fully Redundant Virtual Infrastructure	Fully Redundant SAN	Real-time Server Migration	Dynamic Resource Scheduling	HA Ready	Your Own O.S.	Simple Migration to Cloud
VPS	Parallels Virtuozzo 4						Pre-defined
VDS	VMware ESXi
Cloud Hosting	VMware ESXi + vSphere