As a full-service ISP, Southwest Cyberport offers a complete spectrum of web-publishing services from simple static webpages to highly complex, state-of-the-art interactive content managed sites. But there’s even more to it than that.
At one end of the range are free personal webpages we offer to all our broadband and dial-up customers. At the high end are dedicated colocated webservers owned and operated by corporate clients that access the Internet directly from our secure, access controlled machine room. In between, SWCP offers web-hosting services in three different strengths: Starter, Basic, and Professional.
But now, we are happy to offer a new upper tier of web-publishing service that gives the isolation and independence of private servers without the steep costs of owning and colocating hardware. A Virtual Private Server (VPS) here at SWCP balances convenience and cost to allow website owners and administrators to run their own web-publishing software just the way they want to.
A virtual machine is software on a device that emulates the functions of an entire computer. This allows many virtual servers to run simultaneously on one “real” server, all hidden from each other. Less hardware is required, space is conserved, and resources are shared more efficiently than with purely dedicated servers. Virtualization is already common and is spreading quite rapidly through data centers particularly because of its usefulness in cloud computing.
These economics make virtual servers much less expensive to operate than racks of dedicated devices and gives other important advantages as well. For instance, each virtual server can run its own operating system which can be rebooted independently. Setting up an isolated area on a machine allows users to run programs that might be considered risky, unstable, or too antiquated to be handled on a modern webfarm where resources are shared between and distributed among many other websites.
This means that legacy and proprietary software can be run more safely in such an environment. With great power (and savings), however, comes a certain responsibility. It is up to the site owner to update and maintain their software. But VPS is a good option for high-power web-publishers who need the freedom and control of their own devices without risking the substantial investment in hardware that will soon become obsolete.
SWCP’s VPS options start at just $45/month. Call or email for more information.
