If your website is currently hosted on a shared account and is growing rapidly, you might want to consider a Virtual Private Server hosting option. With shared hosting environments proving to be unstable for sites with sudden high traffic, a virtual private server gives you more flexibility and resources. With a Virtual Private Server you are guaranteed these resources. You dont have to be worried about taking up too many resources, or someone else taking those resources and slowing your website down. You also have the ability to customize the server environment to your websites needs without having the limitations of a shared account.
Since VPS plans are offered with and without support, you will need to determine if technical support and updating are something that you required. First decide if you need the skills of a professional server administrator for your account maintenance or if you are capable of doing them on your own. If not, you may consider going with a managed VPS. Also, choose a mainstream control panel like cPanel or Plesk to make tasks and managing less technical and more efficient. Your learning curve can be greatly reduced with these management tools, giving you more free time and resources to focus on your core business.
cPanel and Plesk are considered to be the most popular control panels currently available. Both have many benefits to them, and it is recommended that you check both of them out to see which best fits your needs. If you are uncertain you may ask the web host which they offer and support.
If you are running an e-commerce site, one of your key concerns will be proper security. With online credit card transactions occurring with sensitive data it is crucial to ensure that your virtual private server is up to date and that firewalls are set properly to avoid hacking. It is essential to have SSL (Secured Socket Layer) Certificates in place also. This will ensure that your transactions for credit card payments are secure, and that sensitive client transaction data is safe.
With the amount of websites being hacked and attacked you want to make sure that your hosting provider provides 24/7 server monitoring. Having support across multiple channels should be your first consideration as this will be essential to making sure your site is up and running quickly in the event that it goes down. At the minimum, 24-hour ticket response is critical.
Research the customer service experience when choosing a company. Search the internet for experiences both good and bad about the company to see if they live up to their support promises.
The technical aspects of a virtual private server do not have to be difficult if you find the right company to handle them for you. Whether you are technical and choose a self-managed VPS, or a fully-managed VPS, it is important to make sure that the web host offers support when adjustments are needed quickly.
