Virtual Server Hosting (VPS)

Enterprise Quality VPS Hosting, Louisville, Kentucky

BluegrassNet’s VPS (virtual private server) system runs on the VMware ©platform. All virtual servers at BluegrassNet are scalable. Here are some of the reasons people go with a VPS server:

• Great for running smaller servers that don’t need a lot of resources
• Good place to start for someone that doesn’t know what resources they will need (or) have fluctuating server needs
• Excellent for those customers that don’t want the trouble of dealing with hardware. It’s BluegrassNet’s problem, not yours!

Flexible VPS Resources

BluegrassNet is very flexible in allocating resources for your applications. If you are interested in getting the best value for your money, call in and speak with an engineer to make sure you order the correct server for your needs. Our service, coupled with our great pricing, will be hard to beat.

For Turn-Key Server Pricing and Deployment Click Here.

For Custom Pricing, click here to have a BluegrassNet Representative give you a custom quote to meet your specific Virtual Server needs.

General VPS Information & Features:

» Economical Pricing
» VMware© Virtual Environment
» Redundant, Failover Server Environment for High-Availability Performance
» Multiple IP Networks and N+1 power
» Full service assistance with Microsoft© licensing
» Root Level Access
» Expandable Storage Network

Additional Services

The most popular service is “Basic Server Administration”. This means that for a nominal monthly fee your server is assigned an administrator who will log in pro-actively and on a regular schedule to:

• Check diagnostics such as CPU, memory, and disk space utilization
• Review the log files for potential hardware problems
• Monitor intrusion detection systems for attempted security violations
• Maintain the server OS and installed modules with updates which are applied as needed
• This service available on both Microsoft and Unix (Linux/Redhat, FreeBSD, CentOS, etc.) server platforms

Why would someone get their own virtual server?

Upgrading to your own server improves performance, reliability, and control over your website. Moving to a virtual server is the next step up from a shared hosting environment. By moving to your own server you don’t have to worry about other sites slowing you down or crashing your server. Virtual servers also give you total control over what software is installed on your site, opening the door for additional performance gains. In a nutshell having a dedicated virtual server:

• Improves the probability that your website will run smoothly, especially when there are increased site visits.
• Improves security on many levels (very important if running credit card transactions)
• Increases the amount of flexibility on deploying scripts and other “active” actions on the website
• Releases you from the limitations that the sys admins put on a shared server (such as access levels, or poorly executing software).
• Protects you from other people doing things “wrong” and slowing the server down or taking it down all together.

The Reality of (Shared) Virtual Hosting

Hosting multiple sites on the same server is common practice in the webpage hosting business. Tens or hundreds of sites are typically hosted on one web server. Economies of scale kick in to make shared hosting a cost-effective way to host smaller sites with lower bandwidth requirements for low monthly rates (sometimes under $10 per month). However, shared hosting has some limitations, the main one being: oversharing.

The problem with sharing a server with other sites is just that, you are sharing your server’s resources (CPU, bandwidth, processes, memory, etc). As the number of sites on your server rises, the load on the server increases. Also, some of the sites sharing your digital home may suddenly become popular or use insecure code. Unless your hosting company limits the number of sites and server load you may find your site’s performance gradually decreasing.

What options do you have?

Answer: Getting your own server. Having your own server gives you the peace of mind of not sharing your resources with others, not to mention unfettered root access. Your site’s performance will become more consistent and reliable, and you can install software (and in some cases hardware) that shared hosting providers often restrict in the name of security and cost, including:

• Compression software (mod_gzip, etc.)
• Apache modules (mod_perl, mod_rewrite, etc.)
• Configuration file changes (httpd.conf etc.)
• Cache settings
• XSSI (executable server-side includes)
• Multiple hard drives, with one for web logging
• Memory (the more the better)

These performance features are often not allowed in a shared hosting environment. Summary: The bottom line is that when a website becomes popular even optimistic capacity planning doesn’t foresee the server loads that ensue. Sites can bog down with the increased load due to any number of reasons:

• Disk swapping due to memory limitations
• CPU overloaded due to numerous calculations
• Too many processes, due to numerous spawned scripts
• Bandwidth bottlenecks
• Inefficient SQL queries

To speak with a Rep or Engineer regarding what type of virtual server would be right for you, please give us a call: 502-589-4638