Most operating servers have to be available 24/7. If they are running for such a period but not always being utilised, then it’s a waste of computing resources and operational costs. A possible solution could be to own a virtual server environment to reduce the amount of physical servers actually needed, thus greatly reducing overall costs.

Virtual dedicated server hosting is a product that is designed to allow the creation of multiple virtual servers on a single Windows server. Each of these virtual servers is stored as a hard drive image file and functions as an independent computer running its own operating system and individual set of applications. Virtual dedicated server hosting can be ideal for numerous reasons. Primarily, though, they are used in development environments and are used for server consolidation. The reason why the virtual dedicated server works so well in development environments is because it allows developers to test potentially ‘buggy’ software on a variety of different operating systems without having to worry about crashing the system.

Imagine an old Windows NT Server running an application that won’t run under any other version of Windows. If the hardware the application is running on stops running, a possible solution might be to create a Windows NT virtual machine on an existing dedicated server and run the application from there.

Should a crash occur and, heaven forbid, a virtual machine destroyed then it would be a matter of recovering a single file. Virtualisation ultimately saves money and space.

CWCS provides a selection of virtual dedicated servers at highly competitive prices.