Why VPS Hosting is the Best Option for Business

When it comes to creating a successful business, a lot of emphasis is placed on customer care and experience which reflects upon a brand’s identity. Given the technological advancements pushing physical businesses into an online realm, your business’ brand identity no longer stops at just the storefront banner but reaches beyond tangible space into the virtual world of the Internet.

While countless businesses realise the importance of creating and developing websites, many do not take the right steps to reap its full benefit. Some businesses have limited knowledge on server and web hosting resulting in their websites appearing cheap, dull and totally unappealing to their target customers.

On the brighter side, smarter businesses that have tackled the digital space tend to have the advantage of exploring into the endless benefits that a VPS offers them such as unique content and fast loading times that nail the customer experience. 

What is a VPS?

A Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a virtual machine that uses its own operating system housed in an actual physical computer located in a data center sold as a service by a company that provides internet hosting service. A VPS partitions a single physical server to form multiple isolated self-contained units within it which are independent of its neighbours.

It is the most well-balanced option compared to:

Shared hosting where multiple websites share a single server making your business website prone to suffering from downtime and other forms of interruptions caused by other websites within the same server;

and

Dedicated server where you have the entire computer to yourself which may be redundant, waste of resources and definitely not budget friendly for most businesses.

Many small or medium scale businesses become successful after experiencing a sudden surge of customers and revenue upon opting for a VPS. Come to think about it, it’s not that surprising given how a VPS allows business owners to have increased control over their business functions which are commonly limited by shared hosting.

Benefits of using a VPS

You may ask wonder what is VPS hosting going to do to benefit my business? Put simply, if your business goals are to reduce business expenses, hike up revenue and profit, make your customers happy, then a VPS ticks all these boxes for you.

A VPS improves the performance of your website with a significant boost of speed when loading a page and improvement of reliability with minimal risk of crashing or server error. Server availability can easily make or break certain businesses such as tax-related programs and forex trading that require an active server availability 24/7. Thanks to its own set of resources with dedicated RAM, CPU and bandwidth allocation, your website will be more accessible and user-friendly even to the most impatient visitor.

Adding to this, many businesses often experience frustration running their website due to limited functions. Whether or not you are allowed to add in features and run certain software on your website depends totally on the discretion of your web host. A VPS solves this problem as it hands over control to the business owner. With greater control acting in the position of an administrator, you now have the power to customise software, run various operating systems, and own multiple websites.

It is not an overstatement when we say that a VPS is a cost-efficient solution for your business. You can opt for a managed VPS package where a VPS manager helps you manage the entire server which saves you from the trouble of having to hire an IT personnel just for the maintenance of VPS. To those who are wondering “what if I’m away from my usual computer and how to access my VPS?”, you’ll be thrilled to hear that a VPS can be accessed remotely.

With the significant advantage of remote access, you now have the option to employ workers to work remotely instead of being bound to a physical machine. This possibility opens up doors of opportunity to save a good deal on office space and travelling allowance. You can even customise the VPS so that all the members of your sales team can access it for constant updating on the details of your company’s products or services.

If you run or intend to set up an online retail website and accept credit cards as one of the payment methods, then you most likely know about the Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance test. The PCI Data Security Standard is established by worldwide major credit and debit card brands such as Visa, Mastercard and American Express to protect against data theft and other kinds of fraud and to ensure that the data by online merchants is processed, stored and transmitted in a secure manner. With VPS, it is more likely that your website will pass the PCI test due to the security, integrity and load times of your server.

The above is only a slice of the plethora of benefits that you can get from using a VPS. If you want to take your business to the next level, then VPS is the growth strategy that you should adopt.

Disadvantages of VPS

No matter how advantages a VPS is for a business, there is an inevitable truth that there are certain cons that come with it.

Financially speaking, a VPS is not free. Although it comes with a cost, it is not as costly. There are options for a reasonable basic VPS package with bargains finding you paying only a few dollars more than most shared hosting plans. Compared to a dedicated web hosting service that may cost up to tens of thousands a year, a VPS is still the budget-friendly option.

Emphasis needs to be made in the selection process of your VPS service provider. Choose them wisely as a poorly managed VPS service provider can jeopardise your business. Many unscrupulous VPS providers neglect to allocate the resources appropriately due to overselling their packages. What happens next is a lack of resources, constant downtime that ends up driving your customers away. If you don’t want that, then do a thorough research on your list of VPS service provider before you decide by understanding the features being offered by a VPS service provider and their reputation.

Why is a VPS the Best Option for Business

Now that you understand what is VPS hosting, let’s explore why VPS is best used for business. The old-school way that businesses run their servers is by purchasing the entire server and installing it in the office. That also means that they need an IT expert on-premise all the time. These kinds of servers are usually task-specific and are not versatile at all rendering it underutilised all the time. The business that utilises this kind of server is always one step behind their much bigger business competitors. Then VPS comes and gives them the light at the end of the tunnel.

Pocket-friendly

Instead of owning and managing the whole server, you now get to rent it via a VPS. Renting a server frees up money for other aspects and development of your business. By picking and choosing whatever specifications you want such as bandwidth, RAM CPU, and so on, you have the opportunity to optimise your resources. Unlike the modern dedicated server, you don’t need to pay the upfront costs of the physical machine, maintenance and support of the server.

You are in control

Contrary to shared hosting where you are sharing the server with hundreds of other websites, you get your own private server in a VPS. You no longer need to get the “approval” from your web host for software installation or wait for your website’s turn for updates. Now that you are in control, you are able to customise your own website with enhanced security features and the software best for your industry that best suits your business.

Minimal downtime

If your website generates revenue for your company, then even the slightest downtime may put a big dent in your bottom line. Good Australian VPS service providers offer self-healing failover which means that if the physical computer in the data centre goes offline for any reason, your VPS is automatically and immediately mounted on another computer until the issue is fixed. As a result, you will not experience any downtime even when your VPS service provider is conducting maintenance.

Scalability

No doubt this is one of the biggest selling points when it comes to VPS being the best option for businesses. If you own a small business, pick a small package that fits into your budget. With a small business, you are most likely able to predict the amount of traffic your website will receive.  As your business grows in time, scale up your VPS specifications to meet the expanding customer base. The upgrade usually does not cause any downtime making your site continue to operate without interruption.

Manage with ease

It is a misconception that every company needs an IT expert stationed in the office all the time or even an outsourced IT professional. This is especially true when their role is mainly to manage the server only. For many cash trapped small to medium capital businesses, this type of skilled resources can easily be taken on by your VPS service provider. Get a managed VPS package that cost only a fraction of the payroll of your IT personnel. A good VPS manager providers services from support for core service services, fixing problems to running updates for you. 

VPS is the best option as it allows a business to focus on the core elements of growing the business. The technology of VPS is so advanced to the point where security, performance, availability and scalability are no longer issues. The only challenge lies in identifying the right VPS service provider that meet your needs.

What kind of business needs a VPS?

As long as your website attracts customers, i.e. revenue and profit, then a VPS is the ideal solution to help sculpture your online presence. In fact, the size of your business does not really matter as long as you are looking to grow it. When investing in a business, the point of effort relating to scalability should be incorporated into the business plan which matches the purpose of a VPS seamlessly.

VPS works great for various types of business ranging from IT technical software development to merchandise retail and service related. If you are wondering what is a VPS function in a business world and how to use a VPS to the advantage of your business, then we have the answers for you.

VPS provides a happy beginning for online retail thanks to its boost in loading speed. If your page load time takes longer than 3 seconds, then be prepared to bid farewell to a large section of your customers as this significantly affects conversions, page views and definitely your SEO ranking.

Another reason why VPS takes the eCommerce world by storm is that it increases the likelihood of your website passing the Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance test which sets the gold standard established by global credit cards and debit cards brands such as Visa, Mastercard and American Express for the purpose of combating fraud and protecting data.

VPS is also the most favoured type of web hosting amongst companies that provide IT technical service such as code development and hosting services. With root access and flexibility to run various operating systems, VPS provides a stable working environment with complete privacy without the extra cost of maintaining the expensive hardware.

It is also the preferred solution if your business runs on software. A VPS’s star feature of minimal downtime makes it a valuable platform for programs or websites such as forex trading, finance and accounting software that require server availability and stability all the time.

If your company hires sales representatives that travel frequently to turn potential customers into actual profit-generating customers, then VPS may be the secret to being cost-efficient due to its remote access feature. You no longer need to incur cost for travelling allowance and office space since the sales employees can access to the VPS remotely to update and report back on their sales results. At the same time, you are also given the freedom to upload new strategy or information of your company’s products, export and import sales data to the financial system and correspond with the customer via email.

Essentially, many risks normally associated with websites and software are reduced or eliminated completely by adopting a VPS, especially a managed VPS, into your business plan. An allocation of few hundred dollars a year on a decent VPS package will shift your company to a more customer focus company yielding greater customer satisfaction since any technical concern which may arise on the server will be taken care of by the expert.

Understanding more about VPS Security

The online platform may cause some businesses to concern over the security and the privacy of the data of their customers. In fact, some pay well beyond their budget for the exorbitant dedicated server based on this objection. That is unnecessary and a waste of resources as a VPS can easily take care of that.

Let’s begin by looking at the way a VPS works. A hypervisor, also known as virtual machine monitor is a computer software that creates and runs virtual machines and is responsible for managing the individual VPS. It controls the communication between a VPS and the hardware in the data centre such as usage of CPU resources and allocation of memory. When a VPS is booted up, the hypervisor software will ensure that only that specific VPS’s controller, i.e. you, are able to write to and read from it. In essence, it keeps the data separate from other VPS’ and maintains its security.

You may now ask – Well, what is the protective measure by the VPS service provider on the hypervisor? Any decent VPS service provider would invest heavily on protecting the hypervisors from being attacked. The reason for this is that once the hypervisor is compromised, the entirety of the VPS would be affected as a consequence. As such, a good VPS service provider would impose tight control on accessing the hypervisor and maintain it behind multiple layers of security including firewalls.

Next, is the security on VPS level. It is often misunderstood by non-tech savvy people that dedicated server is more secure than VPS, perhaps due to its pricing. Since a VPS allows your data and files to remain hosted in a separate and secured partition which is not accessible to other clients of your service provider, a weakly protected dedicated server can be more vulnerable than a strongly guarded VPS. It all comes down to the configuration of the software and the invasion by unwelcomed threats that are subject to the flaws that exist within the software.

There are many precautionary steps that can be taken by website owners to ward off the threat such as doing constant housekeeping, i.e. running only the software that is required and removing those that are not, configuring the firewall to limit access to only the essential services, and block off others and using secure passwords for user accounts.

Why VPS Hosting is Better than Shared or Dedicated Web Hosting

All business owners are given the three options when it comes to going “online” -  Shared, VPS, or Dedicated web hosting. Selecting the right hosting service makes a tremendous impact on the business. It is not hard to see why VPS hosting is the most preferred one amongst the other types of web hosting as it is the most well-balanced option.

In a shared hosting environment, many websites share a single server with limited server resources allocated to each customer based on the hosting package. In a dedicated web hosting environment, the customer gets the whole server to themselves, not shared with anyone else. VPS lies in the middle where the user gets a slice of the server dedicated to them and therefore gets the best of both worlds.

a) Performance

Nowadays, if you want your business to grow, the first thing you have to do is to make sure that your website performs well. A fast loading website gives the customer a positive experience and you certainly should not expect to see happy returning customer if your website loads as slow as molasses.

Shared hosting

Shared hosting is only suitable for websites that are simple, static and informational without activities required. Since you are sharing the server with few other websites (which could be up to hundreds), you are most likely prone to hearing some “noise” produced by your neighbour. The Noisy Neighbour Effect happens mostly during high traffic hours when the majority of resources is being used by your neighbours causing your website to suffer from slow speed and insufficient memory space.

VPS

If your website receives average to a high volume of traffic or you are running a few websites, then this is the best option. A decent VPS package from a good and reputable VPS service provider will make sure that the server is optimised and the network is not abused so that you get to enjoy the server in peace.

Dedicated

It is true that this is the most direct solution that eliminates the noisy neighbour problem. However, since a well-managed VPS service provider can easily solve that issue at a fraction of the cost of the dedicated web hosting, this is hardly convincing enough for a business to go for dedicated web hosting.

b) Security

As technology advances, many businesses find it a challenge to keep their files and data, including customer’s information, on the web secured and safe from being stolen. In a worst-case scenario, cyber attacks cause major unsalvageable damage to the business and destroyed the business’ reputation and the hard-earned consumer trust.  Choosing the right kind of web hosting eliminates that problem.

Shared hosting

The security of your website in a shared hosting environment depends wholly on how much your host has decided to invest in it. Even though shared hosting is generally safe, your website is vulnerable to attacks as it is beyond your control when your neighbour’s website makes a mistake. Since you are all in the same community on the same machine, your website will likely to be impacted shortly after your neighbour.

VPS

Since all users are allocated an independent isolated IP address, the risk of a security breach is significantly lower. Nonetheless, it all comes down to the fort of security which you have the freedom to build, unlike shared hosting. You can freely install a security plugin, select your own criteria of spam filtering and securing your SSH configuration as a defence mechanism that is more tailored to your business’ functions. This is one of the top reasons why a business that collects information from customers chooses VPS. If you are not an IT expert or wish to avoid wasting time and cost on learning how to gear up your security, then get a managed VPS package where the technicalities are handled from top to bottom.

Dedicated

Just like VPS, the website owners are able to deploy their own security measures as well.

c) Pricing

A simple recipe for disaster is to base your decision entirely on the pricing of web hosting when selecting the one that suits your business. You may think that you have struck a good deal on a one-dollar package but low quality shared hosting services may restrict the growth of your business. On the alternative end of the stick, a dedicated hosting setup typically falls too costly when it comes to budgeting. But will the end quality meet your expectation? Unlike the two, a VPS occupies the middle ground by offering high-quality features (provided you choose the right Australian VPS provider carefully) and reasonable, competitive pricing. 

A VPS, the “Goldilocks” of web hosting with its many outstanding advantages, is often regarded as being neither too expensive nor slow, providing the well-balanced solution for all businesses looking to flourish in the digital space.

How to Choose the Best VPS for Your Business

When you begin your search to find the best VPS Australia has to offer, it is understandable that choosing the best one can be tough given the many technical jargons. As a good VPS can give a game-changing effect on your business, we have carefully shortlisted the few important points to look out for when picking the best VPS service provider that supports your business.

Customer support

If a business does not own an IT department that specialised on web-hosting, then it is dependant on the customer support of the VPS service provider on all day, everyday basis from the very first day. It is not unusual to have many questions, especially when you first started on the VPS and not getting a clear answer, or worse, a response can be extremely frustrating. When serious issues arise, you need to know that your service provider has your back within the right time frame and salvage you from the existing problem.

Always choose an Australian based VPS hosting company and make sure that they do not outsource their call centres to another country to avoid problems such as communication challenges or lack of experience to give you the best advice. 

Be sure to take a look at the website to find out the methods of communication being offered. Some Aus VPS service providers may paint a vibrant picture on how excited they are to help you in growing your business, but in fact, limit all contacts via email or contact form only. When customer support is needed, it has to be at least live either by a chat window on the website or through a direct phone call.

It would be a good idea to enquire the expertise of the technicians that answers call from the customer directly. The preferred level 3 VPS support technicians are ideal personnel to go to as they are equipped with the most knowledge and experience with the ability to deploy solutions to even the most challenging problems.

Cost

By now you should have a certain idea as to the kind of assets that are required by your website. Considering that VPS resources are scalable, don’t get bogged down on the exact details of each resource. Simply list out the estimated criteria for the resources such as memory space, storage, root access, dedicated IP required, CPU cores etc. then compare the prices of the packages offered by the Aus VPS hosts. What is VPS server cost? Australian VPS server costs usually range from $10 - $60 subject to add-on features that may or may not be negotiable depending on your contract term.

Reliability

In a VPS environment, uptime is expected all the time. A reasonably good VPS service provider that is confident on the quality of their service would guarantee a minimum of uptime normally ranges between 99.5% to 99.9%. A session of downtime should not also last more than a few hours.

Data Centers

If you run a business, then you have the responsibility to act seriously in guarding the important data. You can do so by selecting an Australian VPS hosting provider that houses their data centre in Australia. Many VPS hosts outsource their data centre to another country for cost saving purpose. It is foreseeable that many issues may arise from outsourcing a data centre such as security-related issue due to total dependence on the far-away data centre provider or regular breakdown due to lack of due diligence by the VPS service provider.

Self-healing failover

If downtime is one of your top concerns, which it should be, then you must choose a VPS host that provides this feature. When the physical computer of the VPS is running on fails, this system detects it immediately and automatically mount your VPS on another computer, then your IP address is pointed to the new system and your VPS is back online in the exact condition it was when the failure first occurred. This clustering technology and transition can happen fast normally because the VPS service provider uses Fast SSD Raid array. It works equally well too during maintenance by your VPS service provider.

Reputation

If technology is not your forte, just google for the customer’s reviews and look into the history of the company in relation to Australian VPS hosting. Do they provide intuitive support service? Do they attend to the complaint immediately? Is there any negative feedback on downtime? How long have they been in the market? Are they 100% Australian as they claimed? These are just some of the examples that would reflect whether the company is trustworthy. Remember to also choose one that commits to conduct their business practice with an uncompressing level of honesty and integrity.

Finding the right VPS host can be a challenge but it is necessary. Do your homework because the benefits that you can reap from partnering with the right VPS service provider is plentiful including cost saving, acceleration of business growth and most importantly, peace of mind so that you can focus on what you do best, the business side.

Why VPSBlocks is Probably the Best VPS Australia has to Offer

When it comes to finding the best VPS in Australia, VPSBlocks is proud to be one of the top leading players in the Aus VPS industry. For a great price, we offer many outstanding complimentary features and very functional enhanced features for those that require.

Abundance of Choice

With more than ten operating systems including the popular CentOS, cPanel, Ubuntu, Plesk Windows etc. you are spoilt with choices. Cheap Windows VPS is amongst the list of selection too. If you have a preferred operating system, just drop us an email and we will do our best to add it in for you too.

Customisation

Many VPS service providers have readymade VPS packages due to limitations of their own internal capital for resources. Many websites are forced to choose a package that contains specifications which are closest to what they need but they often end up paying for the additional RAM/CPU/ storage space that they don’t even use. To help prevent this, VPSBlocks allow our clients to select the exact VPS plan and customise a perfect package that fits squarely into your business. Just click on the “pricing order’ tab on our website and select the operating system, configure your resources (CPU cores, dedicated RAM, SSD Disk, SATA Disk, bandwidth) and lastly set your payment option by monthly, semi-annually or annually. 

If you are worried about how much resources you need or which operating system you should choose for your business, simply refer to “VPS Advice” which is filled with solid professional guidance and explanation on how to help you choose the right VPS option for you.

There are also up to six optional features such as managed server backups, offsite server backups and server management. You may want to select only the essential features in the beginning and add it on later as and when required. You will then be provided with an instant quote which states the details of the functions and costs of any extra features that may be recommended for you.

Affordability

Whether you are looking for cheap Windows VPS or Linux VPS that come with quality specifications, VPSBlocks has it all. Our basic introductory plan is as low as $10 a month with optional add-on features as low as $5. If your budget allows, consider adding in the optional features in your plan, which is only extra few more hundred dollars a year, as it may unlock the hidden potential of your website and transform the quality of your business.

RAID storage

RAID is a data storage protocol that combines many physical disk drive components into one or more units for the purposes of performance improvement and/or data redundancy. All storage in VPSBlocks is fast 100% SSD RAID storage which is over 100x faster than SAS or SATA. Since your data is stored in different locations on multiple hard disks to protect against drive failure, you no longer need to worry that your data will be wiped out in the unlikely event that the server is corrupted.

Tier-1 bandwidth

Your website speeds depend on how your server connects to the internet stream. VPSBlocks uses Tier-1 bandwidth that provides the highest quality internet connection globally with low latency.

Genuine Australian based company

Not just a self-proclaimed Australian company, VPSBlocks is truly an Australian brand from head to toe. With our data centres and all our highly trained support staff located in Melbourne, you get access to live phone support during business hours with quick turnaround email and ticket support outside of that.

Managed Hardware Firewall

Another free service that is included in all packages provided by VPSBlocks is that we protect the core systems with a well-managed hardware firewall. Maintaining this firewall requires regular updates so that the attacker cannot exploit any vulnerabilities in the services. Managed hardware firewall monitors the state of internet connections and rejects those that do not match a known familiar active connection, therefore, providing an additional line of defence to mitigate the impact of any misconfiguration which accidentally allow traffic without user interaction. Don’t forget, this is in addition to your own firewall rules which you can set up in the VPS control panel.

24/7 service monitoring

You can setup 24/7 HTTP/URL monitoring in the VPS control panel to flag and notify you of any failures via email or SMS alerts. This features 1-minute continuous monitoring and even automatic rebooting of your VPS.  These reliable real-time notifications can help to mitigate any problems before they explode to an unmanageable level.

Disaster recovery

VPSBlocks offer the advanced service of direct VPS replication of your VPS to local or external locations at a reasonable cost. What is VPS server replication? With a 15-minute replication time, your entire VPS including firewalls and networking configurations is continuously replicated elsewhere to an alternate infrastructure for you to easily recover in case of disaster. The manual failover to your direct replication server saves you from embarrassing downtime.

Why VPSBlocks should be your VPS choice

The list of reasons why VPSBlocks is the best in Australia is aplenty. By choosing us as your VPS hosting provider, your website will be pampered with the self-healing failover features and regular limited schedule maintenance. With the aim of providing the best growth opportunity and digital foundation for your business, your purpose is to choose the best Australian VPS service provider that works seamlessly with you and provide a long-lasting and sustainable positive impact on your business growth. VPSBlocks is your answer.

You can’t afford to fail even once when it comes to business websites. Thankfully, VPSBlocks comes to the rescue and redefines the boundaries of online business as the websites no longer need to be bound by the four walls set by the host.

At $10 for the lowest specifications VPS package, we offer a budget-friendly option for businesses of all sizes. If you envision your business to grow at any point in the future, then it is never too early to choose a VPS service provider that provides the extra miles such as add-on features and high maximum bandwidth, large storage space, and more, so that you can scale up your VPS package when your business is ready. Take a leap of faith and speak to VPSBlocks at 1300 839 448 today for more information to securing a brighter future for your business.