Dedicated versus virtual server

A VPS can hold its own with a dedicated server. That’s why Tilaa has specifically chosen virtual private servers and private clouds.

Other advantages of a VPS compared to a dedicated server are:

• Shorter contract term: Monthly contracts instead of annual contracts.
• Lower costs: Achieved by consolidating multiple virtual servers on a physical server.
• Flexibility: You start with a small server, and you scale this up if you need more capacity. When you purchase a dedicated server, the increase in capacity is often already taken into account. This requires an additional investment at the start, while you are not sure if it will ultimately be needed.
• Fast delivery: A VPS can be accessed immediately; the hardware is ready to use.
• High redundancy: Tilaa’s physical servers used for virtualisation are equipped with hardware RAID-10 disk storage, double power supplies on different power feeds and double network connections on different switches.
• Remote access: You can control your server settings remotely. For example, you can reinstall your server or increase the server space. A KVM (keyboard video mouse) console is also available.

Dedicated server users are often hesitant about changing over to a Virtual Private Server (VPS). This is due to several misconceptions about virtual servers.

The main reason to choose a dedicated server is the assumption that it will perform better than a VPS. With the current technology, this is no longer the case: the performance of a VPS is virtually the same as a dedicated server on identical hardware. And providing VPS-guaranteed server capacity is not a problem.

Different forms of virtualisation

The two most common forms of virtualisation used by hosting providers are hardware virtualisation and the so-called containers (or data containers). Tilaa uses hardware virtualisation, because this offers by far the best performance.

While these are very different forms of virtualisation, both are offered as a Virtual Private Server (VPS). Before you move to a VPS, it is important that you understand the main difference between the two virtualisation types, so that you can select the service that will work best for you. We have made our choice already – because quality is our goal.

Hardware virtualisation

In hardware virtualisation, all hardware components that are present in a PC are emulated (imitated), such as the BIOS, keyboard/video card/mouse, hard drive, processors, network cards and memory. The result is a Virtual Private Server (VPS), which is sometimes also referred to as Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS).

• Hardware virtualisation allows you to install all Intel-compatible operating systems and also run multiple operating systems (such as Windows and Linux) alongside one another on a physical server.
• By using special drivers for the network cards and hard drive (paravirtualisation), a VPS performs at virtually the same speed as a dedicated server.

Examples of hardware virtualisation solutions are: KVM, Xen, VMware, Hyper-V and VirtualBox. Tilaa uses KVM-based hardware virtualisation.

Containers

A container (or data container) uses the same operating system as the host. Special software is used to shield it from the rest of the system, which creates the illusion that it is an independent server. However, that is not actually the case. Despite this fact, containers are frequently offered as a Virtual Private Server.

Examples of container solutions are: OpenVZ/Virtuozzo, FreeBSD jails, Solaris zones and LXC.

Difference in performance and price

For containers, it is possible to overbook the memory on the physical server. This means that, in total, more memory is distributed to containers than is actually available on the physical server. For containers, it is assumed that the users will not all call upon their allocated memory at the same time. This is not necessarily a problem if the available memory is only overbooked to a limited extent. However, practice has shown that many VPS providers that offer containers significantly overbook memory, so that they can offer a Virtual Private Server at a lower price.However, if too little memory is available, then the system becomes very slow or can even crash.

In a hardware virtualisation solution, memory is always reserved and your server space is never overbooked. As a result, memory is slightly more expensive than with a container, but your memory is guaranteed to always be available.

Another major difference between hardware virtualisation and containers is that, with a container, you have no control over the kernel. This can create problems if you need certain kernel functionality that is not available in the host kernel. For example, it is not possible to use a different operating system. You can often choose between various Linux distributions, but these all use the same host kernel.