Talk:Virtual private server

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I would agree that the page "Virtual server" should be merged into "Virtual private server" since the term "virtual server" is ambiguous; it is often used to refer to the Web sites served by a Web server such as Apache. "Virtual dedicated server" or "Virtual private server" is entirely clear, however

FYI, I am the Managing Director of Memset Ltd which specialises in Virtual dedicated server hosting.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Khcw77 (talk • contribs) .

I disagree that the terms should be merged. Virtual Private Servers and virtual servers and virtual environments are all different terms. Virtual Private Servers are intended to refer to the actual services provided to customers using virtualization technology. SWsoft (Virtuozzo) now uses the more general virtual environment term to describe virtualized environments created with Virtuozzo. Virtual servers are a general virtualization term, just like virtual environments are, but in practice tend to refer to hardware virtualization technology.

I work for SWsoft on Virtuozzo so I have some bias but use the terms daily.

Carla Safigan 20:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest the addition of the downside (negative) benefits of using a Virtual Private Server versus a traditional stand-alone dedicated server. There are millions of commercial customers who use resource intensive software, such as VBulletin forum software, where a VPS will simply not suffice. --Legal Affairs 15:41, 1 December 2012

There was a section named Virtual Private Server hosting providers. There are tens of thousands hosting service providers, and pretty much every one of them are offering VPS hosting in this or that manner. Say, I know that 10 of 10 biggest HSPs in Europe are using Virtuozzo – but that is not a reason to put links to their sites to this article. So this section made no real sense – one can get VPS hosting from every HSP. Still I agree that a few years ago it was not the case and VPS offerings were unique. But nowdays it's not so, that is why I think this section make no real sense and so I removed it. If you want to discuss that matter, please read Wikipedia:External links first. --K001 11:59, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the two should be merged since they cover the same basic topic. Also, both are stubs and their merged content should be extended. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mfdragosh (talk • contribs) .

I agree. --K001 22:34, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am agree with merging this 2 article together. (I mean merging Virtual server and Virtual private server) --Messi 12:27, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely NOT the same topic.

Server virtualization, especially within UNIX, also refers to technologies such as IBM virtual I/O server, logical partitioning, dynamic LPAR, micropartitioning and various storage virtualization technologies. Its made possible by the use of a hypervisor, a technology adapted from the IBM mainframe.

VPS is a niche technology almost exclusively targeted at Linux and Windows and always implemented at the software layer. In comparison to true server virtualization, it is immature and is nothing more than implementing virtual machines at the application software layer. --FASherman 15:41, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• That's not even what the Virtual server article is currently about. If you think what you described is different from what is currently in Virtual server, then that needs to be a new separate article accessed via a disambiguation. Currently the Virtual server and Virtual private server articles seem quite similar, so I agree they should be merged. -- Bovineone

I strongly disagree with your opinion that VPS (you probably mean Operating system-level virtualization here) is a niche technology, and that it is immature. Say, Virtuozzo is available on the market for more than 5 years already, and Free BSD Jails are here for quite a long time. Speaking of applications of the technology, they are pretty much the same as for other kinds of virtualization -- i.e. mostly server consolidation, security improvement, and basically making possible to do things that there not possible before -- like live migration.

As for the merge -- since the articles are about pretty much the same stuff, it makes sense to merge, as I said above. --K001 20:34, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that "server virtualization" now redirects to "virtual server." The topic of "server virtualization" is broader than the meaning that many people apply to "virtual private server." Many people structure the topic of server virtualization as follows:

• Hardware virtualization: electrically or logically dividing a multi-processor server into multiple, independent computers, e.g. Sun Dynamic System Domains, IBM LPARs, HP nPars, where the sharing of hardware is minimized to optimize isolation and security
• Virtual machines: software or firmware which creates the illusion of multiple computers by providing shared, time-sliced access to hardware resources, e.g. VMware, Xen, MicroPartitions, where each virtual machine includes an individual operating system instance
• Virtual operating systems: software environments which share one operating system instance but are isolated from each other e.g. Solaris Containers/Zones, Linux VServers, BSD Jails, where most hardware resources and some operating system resources are shared among the workloads to maximize total usage of those resources

The myriad of virtualized solutions which use one or more of those types of server virtualization includes: in-house server consolidation, internet hosting services (hosting of web servers, blogs, images, videos, games, files, etc.) and perhaps other solutions.

I suggest that we create a "server virtualization" page which describes the broader context, including a link to "virtual private server" to discuss that sub-topic, and redirect "virtual server" to "server virtualization" so that people find all of the terms and their meanings.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by JeffV (talk • contribs) .

• Those three types of virtualization scenarios are covered in the general case on Virtualization (and Virtual machine and Operating system-level virtualization), so it might be redundant to try to cover them again here. Maybe Virtual private server, Server virtualization, and Virtual server should all just be merged into new sections in Virtualization? -- Bovineone 23:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the parent post. To me, VPS is an Operating-system-level virtualization system (such as a FreeBSD jail or Docker) provided as a service. It is professionally maintained and has better privilege separation than a basic chroot jail but is not as segregated (and therefore not as secure) as a full blown virtual machine, which provides the whole hardware stack to a guest operating system. JeffV went even further in his above comment, talking about the hardware stack being implemented as either a mapping (like VMware) or via emulation (like QEMU). Emulation lets you run e.g. an i386 guest on a SPARC host system while mapping is faster due to its one fewer layer of implementation and can better take advantage of hardware optimizations.

I'd therefore like to see this page largely scrapped, with some of it merging into Virtual machine, some into Operating-system-level virtualization, and the rest into Cloud computing. I actually don't expect much of this page's content to be useful elsewhere, especially since nearly nothing here relates to VPS (OS virtualization). Adam KatzΔ☎ 01:52, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I consult for lylix.net where we provide linux VPS hosting mostly centered around asterisk VOIP services. I must say I'm rather surprised that this rather active segment of the VPS market is not reflected anywhere in the article. The guy who runs Lylix loves OSS and Wikipedia, and what I want to know is, is there anything from the site (text or images) that could be used to make this article better, I'm sure he'd be all for it. If anyone responds to this comment, I can personally put up whatever material there is useful. Eric and I have gotten a lot of use out of Wikipedia (which is why I've done so many edits myself) and we hope that this article, which is rather near and dear to our hearts (and wallets) can be expanded to better educate visitors.

Please let me know what I can do to make this article more complete. Also I'm glad that people are able to fight off all the ridiculous spam that's been filling up this kind of page. Good work guys. - JustinWick 02:02, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please be on the lookout for SEO keyword spammers adding links inside articles.--81.68.125.220 (talk) 09:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is cloud hosting a form of virtual private serving, or vice versa? On the one hand, with cloud hosting, multiple virtual servers might exist on one physical server, but I suppose it could work the opposite way too — multiple physical servers could be used to implement one virtual server. E.g., if enwiki were to use cloud hosting, it might take more than one physical server due to the amount of storage and data transfer required for the website. Tisane (talk) 16:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if this is really worth discussing, but why is OpenVZ listed as a "paravirtualization-capable hypervisor"? OpenVZ doesn't even qualify as a hypervisor, much less software that supports paravirtualization, unless something drastically has changed lately that I'm not aware of. OpenVZ's own wiki clearly implies this fact: http://wiki.openvz.org/Introduction_to_virtualization —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xirgot (talk • contribs) 16:53, 17 September 2010 (UTC) جواد —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.109.196.9 (talk) 02:52, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

customers have superuser-level access to that operating system instance

Not always. E.g,, Dreamhost. Jidanni (talk) 00:16, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've qualified it as "may have access". They may have root, usually do. Unlike shared servers, where they definitely won't. Andy Dingley (talk) 02:07, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Some might argue that having superuser-level access is the difference between a virtual private server and for example web hotels that just allow hosting simple websites and optionally run small programs like IRC bots. Monni (talk) 05:22, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I recently put the “advert section” template on the Motivation section. The issues were fairly obvious and I didn't feel the need to esplain myself beyond the addition ofthe “you” template, and some “peacock” and “weasel” inline templates. Noctlosis helped fix the tagged issues, but the tags were not comprehensive, so I feel like I need to detail the issues I see with the section so that more knowledgable people can fix them more easily. I had initially done this as part of a single post, but accidentally reloaded and lost all that work, so I will now be doing it as separate replies to this post. Bhbuehler (talk) 23:47, 17 January 2023 (UTC) Edited for correct mention syntax.Bhbuehler (talk) 23:50, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the sentances are paraphrased and appear in the first, second and third paragraphs. A few only appear in two of the three paragraphs.

1. failover
   1. VPSes may be used to decrease hardware costs by condensing a failover cluster to a single machine, thus decreasing costs while providing the same services
   2. Finally, a VPS is utilized to reduce hardware costs by consolidating a failover cluster into a single server, resulting in considerable cost savings while maintaining the same level of service.
   3. Finally, it is used to reduce hardware costs by consolidating a failover cluster into a single server, resulting in significant cost savings while maintaining the same level of service.
2. A group of four sentences from the first paragraph occurs paraphrased in the second paragraph with the third and fourth sentences omitted, and in the third paragraph with the second sentence omitted.
   1. “Server roles and features are generally designed to operate in isolation. For example, Windows Server 2019 requires a certificate authority[3] and a domain controller to exist on independent servers with independent instances of Windows Server. This is because additional roles and features adds areas of potential failure as well as adding visible security risks (placing a certificate authority on a domain controller poses the potential for root access to the root certificate). This directly motivates demand for virtual private servers in order to retain conflicting server roles and features on a single hosting machine.”
   2. “The majority of server roles and functionalities are designed to work independently. For example, Windows Server 2019 necessitates the presence of a certificate right and a domain controller on split servers running part of Windows Server instances.”
   3. “Roles and features on servers are classically planned to work in separation. This is expected to the fact that adding more roles and features increases the number of potential failure points while also increasing the visibility of security threats that placing a certificate authority on a domain controller poses the potential for root access to the root certificate. This drives demand for virtual private servers, which allow conflicting server responsibilities and functionalities to be maintained on a single hosting machine.”
3. virtual machine encrypted networks
   1. “Also, the advent of virtual machine encrypted networks decreases pass-through risks that might have otherwise discouraged VPS usage as a legitimate hosting server.”
   2. “In addition, the introduction of virtual machine encrypted networks reduces pass-through hazards that may otherwise deter VPS use as a genuine hosting server.”

Every sentence in the third paragraph is paraphrased from the first paragraph. Bhbuehler (talk) 00:12, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Update on duplication: The repetition was introduced all at once by Olivernoah2022 (Motivation section and Hosting section). The charitable interpretation is that they were attempting to rephrase and expand the section but left the original in somehow. Some of the duplication in the Hosting Section was caught by an anonymous user, but not all of it. I will be removing the repetition. Bhbuehler (talk) 18:15, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• virtual machine encrypted network
• pass-through risk
• Windows Server Specific Jargon
  • Server roles and features
  • certificate authority (Windows Server context)
    • certificate right: Is this just a bad paraphrase of certificate authority (see Repetition)?
  • domain controller (Windows Server context)

Bhbuehler (talk) 00:32, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Like Bhbuehler explained above, there are a lot of issues with that section, it feels totally misleading to what the article should be, with that said, I removed it. Oym8Ug0tdasauce (talk) 09:00, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]