Understanding
the Difference Between Physical
Servers, Virtual Private Servers (VPS) and
Dedicated Virtual Machines (VMs)
The following chart should provide a
complete understanding of the differences
between the service offerings. If you have
further questions, please don't hesitate to
contact us for more information.
Function
Physical
VPS
Dedicated VM Hosting
Details
High Availability
Only available in
clustered farms
High platform
availability with automatic hardware failover is built into
the VMware-based virtualized environment
Managed
Infrastructure
Optional
Partially*
The hardware
underlying the virtualized infrastructure is monitored and
managed by skilled engineers 24x7
Deployment
Weeks/Months
Hours/Days
Hours/Days
Physical
infrastructure needs to be specified, ordered and delivered
Dedicated
Resources
(CPU, RAM)
VMWare Server
allows precise and accurate control over resource
allocation, ensuring you receive what you pay for as a
minimum
Dedicated
Performance
VMWare
Server's precise resource control guarantees your
performance cannot be impacted by other customers
Independence from
underlying OS
Only the true
virtualization of VMWare Server allows complete independence
from an underlying OS
Migration from
existing hosting environment
Non-trivial
Possible*
Fast & Efficient
P2V (Physical to
Virtualized) tools can be used to smooth the migration path
Upgrading
Processor Speed
Non-trivial
Possible*
Fast & Efficient
Upgrading
physical infrastructure requires specification, ordering and
delivering and installation of any component.
This is a
trivial change in a virtualized environment.
Upgrading RAM
Non-trivial
Possible*
Fast & Efficient
Upgrading HDD
Non-trivial
Possible*
Fast & Efficient
Cloning
Possible*
Cloning a
production environment for development purposes is easily
delivered using virtualized dedicated hosting
Daily Server
Image Snapshots
Non-trivial
Possible*
Daily
snapshots and backups are included in a VMware-based environment
