VMware Web Hosting

VMware web hosting relates to leasing servers that run VMware's server virtualisation software.

Using VMware web hosting solutions, an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or hosting provider can offer all the features of a dedicated server, but share the physical hardware with between 10 and 20 other such servers.

VMware web hosting allows the conversion of physical servers into virtual servers. It allows users to consolidate their servers and utilise their hardware more efficiently, since most dedicated servers use only 5-10% of their resources. Server consolidation also cuts down energy consumption without affecting performance.

Virtualisation takes a physical server (host), adds a specialized piece of software and ‘slices’ the server into multiple, independent virtual servers, sometimes called virtual machines (VM), virtual private servers (VPS), virtual dedicated servers (VDS) or simply guests.

Each guest VM can have its own customised software stack and unique, unshared root access. The virtualization software, known as Hypervisor or virtual machine monitor, monitors the guests, allocates resources to them as needed, and provides additional features and benefits.

In essence, the virtual server communicates with the hypervisor, which is an added intermediate layer connected to the physical server and managing its resources distribution.

VMware web hosting offers the benefits of dedicated hosting at a lower price, the capacity to add resources instantly, the benefits of advanced features that are more readily available with virtual servers (eg high availability and virtual clusters) and the comfort of helping to conserve energy and reduce climate change.

VMware Image Hosting

Using virtualisation, a physical server (host) can be divided into multiple ‘guests’ or independent virtual private servers (VPS), each with its own software and admin/root access.
Each guest is encapsulated as an image, a directory system with the operating system and configuration files needed for virtualisation. A basic server image can be cloned and modified to generate many guest servers.

VMware Image Hosting is the practice of hosting virtual private server images compatible with VMware virtualisation solutions.

VMware Image Hosting is the realm of specialised ISPs who offer virtualisation and cloud hosting solutions to web hosts, businesses and end users. The VMware image hosting provider installs VMware's ESXi server on the physical hardware and allows users to choose from many 32-bit and 64-bit virtual server images of Windows (2003/2008) and Linux (RedHat, CentOS, Ubuntu) servers - or to upload their own VMware compatible images. Virtual Image Hosting customers can run different operating systems concurrently on the same server and convert physical servers into virtual ones. They can also consolidate and improve stability with high availability and the live migration of servers.

For web hosts, VMware image hosting offers the ability instantly to provision servers and to allocate resources, and cost-effectively to provide advanced dedicated server solutions.

For businesses, the main benefits are server consolidation, easier management and higher stability and scalability. End users appreciate the price/performance ratio.

PEER 1 Hosting is a VMware Partner and provides advanced virtualisation and private cloud solutions for businesses and individuals.