VPN vs VPS: what’s the difference?
Many PC users at different levels are accustomed to understanding that a physical personal computer is a server that you personally or a company own and control. Not everyone has time to follow the development of IT technologies and quickly introduce new products in their work. But in vain, because it has become more economical nowadays to outsource your servers and rent them from an Internet hosting provider at the right time. The provider is solely responsible for the management, updating, and operation of the server software. You just install the content you need on it (a website or something else …) At the same time, every year computers become more powerful, the maintenance of an entire server becomes quite costly, financially impractical, and impractical for small users, and most of the paid technical resources remain unused.
The development of modern software technologies allows a physical server to be divided into smaller virtual private servers (VPS). They can be used autonomously by individual users only as much as their applications need.
In practice, it looks like this: a physical server with 16 CPU cores and 32 GB of RAM is divided by software engineers into four virtual servers (VPS). Each VPS gets 4 CPU cores and 8 GB of RAM. At the same time, each VPS is completely private; it is used autonomously by one user (natural or legal person) as a personal computer but is located on the Internet.
Who, when and should I contact a VPS?
Virtual Private Servers (VPS) have 2 main advantages:
- the resource is selected in accordance with your needs and is easily changed (both in the smaller and in the larger direction). In this case, all used data and applications are not transferred to another physical medium (from server to server).
- paid exclusively for the resource that you use.
Let’s give an example to help you understand this.
You need to link a small website. A server with 2 CPU cores and 2GB of RAM should suffice. But such servers are not produced (expensive production, with minimal resources, servers are not produced cost-effectively). It is quite convenient for you to purchase a VPS hosting that will meet your needs and will be affordable in price.
You can make your VPS more powerful. To do this, you do not need to reinstall anything on VAPS hosting, and even more so, you do not need to transfer all the content from one server to another. Your VAPS provider will very quickly connect you to an additional VPS resource.
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In addition to the above described VPS. To use the opportunity to offer:
- virtual hosting. It’s even cheaper, but only recommended for very small and simple websites;
- lease of a physical server (dedicated server). For significantly more power.
When making a choice, consider a full technical comparison of IT technologies or seek professional advice.
What is VPN for business?
The Internet is an international network that connects computers around the world. People can access information from anywhere they have a connection.
Any company has confidential information (personal databases, access to bank accounts, etc.). Many organizations also have documents and websites that are commercial secrets (often referred to as intranets). Only employees of a certain level are allowed to them. For such documents, the task of the company is to ensure a high level of security. In such cases, a local network is created without access to the Internet. But, the reality of today is that firms have several offices, including in different countries. More and more employees are working remotely. It is no longer possible to confine oneself to a local network, and the need to protect information is increasing.
The solution will be an IT technology virtual private network (VPN) connecting all offices together.
So VPN creates a bridge over the Internet to securely connect users to resources. Information that is transmitted using a VPN is encrypted at the exit, decrypted at the final destination, and becomes inaccessible to outsiders (even for hackers – intruders).
What is a VPN for an individual?
The second possibility of VPN technology is hiding the user’s IP address (providing anonymity).
Let’s say you connect your PC to the Internet (for example, public Wi-Fi) without a VPN and enter a website. The domain names of the websites you visit with your IP address are visible to both the network and the ISP. Once connected using VPN technology, the only information that anyone will see is the fact that the user is connected to the VPN.
The third function of a VPN is to enable its user to access geo-restricted content and bypass censorship. For example, there might be a movie that is available to Americans but not Europeans. When you are connected to a VPN, censorship does not recognize which geographic location you are connecting from. As a result, you get what you want without obstacles.
Using a VPS to Create Your Own VPN
We’ve covered the difference between VPS and VPN. It is now easy to assume that it is possible to rent a VPS and install VPN software on it. As a result, you will get your own VPN.
Learn how to set up VeePN on Windows Server 2019. Alternatively, you can set up cloud-based VeePN for Windows via Liquid Web. We offer the benefits of a private network without the hassle of installing, managing, or maintaining the VPN itself. Contact us, and the most experienced people in hosting will help you to provide you with quality work of both a virtual private server and a virtual private network.
