Virtual Dedicated Servers

What is a Virtual Dedicated Server?

A virtual dedicated server is a slice of a full dedicated server, but unlike shared web hosting, provides its own unique OS and root access.

Virtual dedicated servers (VDS, or sometimes referred to as Virtual Private Servers) are idea for development, testing, and for small deployments. They do not perform as fast as a shared account or a dedicated server, but are a less expensive way to have full root access and control over the hosting environment.

Many of our customers use our VDS plans to develop web applications with Ruby on Rails, PHP 5, or Python.

IMPORTANT: These plans are considered unmanaged. If you need full management services, please consider our managed hosting service.

Features Included with All Plans

	Toll Free 24/7 Phone and E-mail Support, 100% network uptime guarantee
	Ideal for Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Mongrel, Lighttpd, PHP 5, MySQL 5 and Python
	Full Root Access - Install and/or compile anything you need!
	Your Choice of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (recommended), Debian 5, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, CentOS 5, Fedora, Gentoo, and Slackware
	Hosts are Dual Xeon Processors and protected by hardware RAID
	Free Backup Server Space, DNS management, Reverse DNS, and snapshot service
	Webmin (free), cPanel, and DirectAdmin available
	Free Unfuddle (Subversion, Git, and Bug Tracking) Account

* cPanel and DirectAdmin have a $17.50 a month license fee

Mini-FAQ on our Virtual Dedicated Server Plans

Q: What's the difference between a VDS and a regular hosting plan?

A: Technically a VDS gives you an entire server instance (operating system and all) to yourself, instead of just an Apache virtual host and an account on MySQL. With that comes the freedom to configure the server any way you want. It also comes with the responsibility of keeping it up to date and secure, where in a regular web hosting plan this is done for you at the server level.

From an operations standpoint, a VDS works much like a dedicated server, but it is a bit slower. For some heavy applications, particularly memory intensive ones, they can be significantly slower. This isn't to say VDS's can't be suitable for the task, its just important not to overload them.

Q: What are the differences between the Xen and OpenVZ plans?

A: Xen and OpenVZ refer to the host software that enables the virtual machines to function. Xen features complete resource isolation, giving you your own running kernel (that you can insert modules into if you wish) and a higher level of performance and security. OpenVZ uses a shared kernel approach that allows for more resources and burstable RAM, but is not as isolated as Xen virtual machines. That said, both technologies give you your own root access and both are similar to that of having a real dedicated server.

Q: Can I easily change plans?

A: Upgrading between plans in the same technology (between one Xen plan to another, for example) is an easy procedure that typically doesn't take any longer than a simple reboot of your virtual machine instance (less than 5 minutes of downtime). Moving from Xen to OpenVZ (or in reverse) can take a bit longer.

Q: I'd like to use cPanel or DirectAdmin. Is there a minimum configuration required for them?

A: We don't advise running cPanel or DirectAdmin on any system that has less than 160 MiB of RAM. We have found however that the Webmin / Virtualmin control panel seems to run well even in the 96 MiB configurations.