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Having decided that your new website would benefit from Dedicated Hosting, you may then find the price prohibitive. There is, however, a more affordable alternative known as a Virtual Dedicated Server or VDS, also referred to as Virtual Private Server or VPS.With virtual dedicated server hosting, rather than having your own server completely dedicated to your website, your site is hosted on a shared server but the server has been divided, or partitioned. Each site hosted on the server has its own separate partition.
Some, but not all, of the benefits of fully dedicated hosting are available with virtual dedicated server hosting. These include the ability for each partition to run on a different OS (operating system), such as Windows or Linux. Another advantage over shared hosting is that your site will not be affected if another site on the server requires rebooting. The delivery of your site will be un-interrupted.

As a rule, virtual dedicated hosting is available at a cheaper price than most dedicated server plans but care should be taken in selection. As with all things, those services that are much cheaper may be lacking in features and service level that are important in all website hosting services, irrespective of type.

You should find all the features available on dedicated hosting offered with VDS. There are however some restrictions on scripts, for instance, that might have an impact on the whole server, and therefore other websites hosted virtually. If the server is well monitored by your service provider, this should protect your site from the effects of any other site hosted on other partitions at the same machine. Such monitoring should be a prerequisite for any hosting service you use.

The requirements you would look to be filled by the service you choose would include those you would seek with any kind of hosting plan. These would include a service guarantee of at least 30 days, 99.9% minimum uptime, good support service with multiple methods of contact, adequate disk space and bandwidth, inclusive scripts such as shopping cart and forum, website builder if required, dependable, private FTP access or a good file manager, control panel, SSL, MySQL, PHP, and CGI.

Provided the service selected satisfies all requirements you have for your hosting, there is little to distinguish virtual dedicated hosting from fully dedicated hosting except the lower price point. This makes Virtual Dedicated Hosting an option for those looking for a better hosting service on a more limited budget.