MostHost Hosting Blog

Linux VPS Hosting

If you’re planning on setting up a hosting service, it’s completely normal to want the most benefit out of it, and to be able to develop it in a profitable way. There are many factors and variables that you can toy with until you get a perfect balance between investments and income, and one of the best ways to tip that balance in the right direction, is VPS hosting. It’s the cheapest way to offer your services to a multitude of people, without having to spend too much on actual computers, unlike other hosting schemes where you generally need to dedicate a separate machine for every new client.

Through VPS hosting, you can run several instances of an operating system on one computer, and grant your users complete access to one (or more) of those systems. It works in a useful manner both ways – you don’t have to spend a lot, and thus the client doesn’t either, but they still get great service.

A common concern when planning on developing such a setup, is what operating system to use. The truth is, any of the popular ones will serve you great, but each one is suited for a specific purpose. Your choice should depend entirely on what you need most in your system, and how you’re planning on running the company technology-wise. Linux is a good choice when your primary concerns are stability, security, and low resource use.

Though it’s a bit more difficult to set up a Linux system for VPS hosting, it gets pretty easy and straightforward afterwards. The most widely used software for the purpose is VMware. There are many factors which contribute to its popularity, but the major ones are its ease of use, flexibility, and stability. It receives continuous support from its developers and each new version makes it more and more polished. The best part is that it’s completely free to use for any purposes. This is important to consider if you want to profit as much as possible from your hosting service, while keeping your investments down to a minimum.

You may also want to install a web hosting control panel. It’s actually a pretty much standard function in hosting services nowadays, so if you want to display professionalism, this is an absolute must. ISPConfig is a great tool that will easily perform the task of adding, managing and giving control over multiple websites, making the technicalities behind the hosting a breeze. Your users will appreciate having a tool to do their management easily without having to install one themselves. The program is free, and actually open source, and it’s widely renowned as one of the best utilities of its kind.

Once you’re done setting up the box, you can start giving away user accounts for it to your customers. Make sure you carefully plan the system’s capabilities though – decide how much processor time, memory and disk space you’d like to give each user, and calculate the maximum number of users per machine accordingly. Use the one that bottlenecks the system as a measurement, since it will be the one to “run out” first.