Competitive
Comparison
There are essentially two hosting solutions available
on the Internet today: "virtual hosting"
and Virtual Servers. Though the terms seem similar,
the underlying functionality of the two solutions is
very different. Understanding the differences between
"virtual hosting" and Virtual Servers can
have a significant impact on your hosting decision.
Web Hosting solutions
consist of two components:
- the hardware (CPU,
memory, disk drives, etc.)
- the software (web,
ftp, and pop servers, email gateway, and any
third party applications or CGI scripts)
In a "virtual
hosting" environment, both the hardware and
software are configured and controlled by the server
administrators. Therefore, you are left with little
to no control over how your server functions. This
kind of inflexible solution simply shares the single
set of software applications on the physical server.
You in effect have only "subletted"
software resources controlled and maintained by
someone else!
In a true Virtual
Server environment only the hardware is controlled
and maintained by our administrators. The software (i.e.
the Web, FTP, POP/IMAP services) is completely
autonomous and affords the client complete
flexibility, control, and power over how his or her
Internet services behave.
How is this
accomplished? The Virtual Server host server is
multiplexed or partitioned into many Virtual Servers
(we partition the Operating System, not just the web
server). Each Virtual Server can be customized at
your discretion. By choosing us, you choose
control, you choose flexibility, you choose power.
Is your web site
currently being virtually hosted?
Chances are, yes. Almost all Internet Presence
Providers provide only simple Virtual Hosting
solutions for their clients. As you review the chart
below, compare the capabilities of your current web
site to those of a Virtual Server. If you find that
your current hosting solution has less "YES's"
than "NO's", you are using a solution
inferior to what you would enjoy as one of our
customers.
| Features |
Virtual
Server |
Virtual
Hosting |
| Complete control of server
environment |
YES |
NO |
| Individual Web server (HTTP) |
YES |
NO |
| Individual FTP server* |
YES |
NO |
| Individual POP/IMAP server* |
YES |
NO |
| Individual SMTP gateway |
YES |
NO |
| "Virtual Root" access |
YES |
NO |
| Complete Telnet access |
YES |
Maybe |
| Access to configuration files |
YES |
NO |
| Full CGI-bin access |
YES |
Maybe |
| Complete log files |
YES |
Maybe |
In
addition to the performance and flexibility of our
Virtual Servers, our Virtual Servers also offer "virtual hosting"
capabilities. In other words, "virtual hosting"
is a feature of our Virtual Servers. Our Virtual
Servers allow you to create virtual web hosts (each
with their own domain name), virtual email, virtual
ftp logins, and quota support. Most of our
competitors simply offer virtual hosting, which is
simply a single feature of our Virtual Servers.
A real Virtual Server
is not simply a virtually hosted (VirtualHost) site
on a web server we control, rather we give you "virtual
root" access. When you telnet to your Virtual
Server you will see directories such as "dev",
"usr", "bin", "etc". In
your "etc" directory you will find your own
"passwd", "aliases", and "sendmail.cf"
files... this allows you unlimited flexibility to add
as many POP accounts, aliases, autoresponders as you
would like.
With our Virtual
Servers you will also find an entire "usr/local/etc/httpd"
directory structure including your own httpd.conf,
srm.conf, and access.conf files, your own logs, and
cgi-bin. Basically our Virtual Server acts and
behaves like a dedicated server, you have complete
control of your web, ftp, and email services. The
basic differences between a dedicated server and an
our Virtual Server is the disk space and the price.
Price Comparison
For the quality of service you receive, our Virtual
Server prices are unbelievably low. In fact, if
you factor in the additional surcharges many other
hosting companies add for additional bandwidth and
POP accounts, we are the price leader.
If you could have the
power of a Virtual Server at a virtual hosting price,
why would you pay more for less???