A Virtual Private Server (VPS) offers many advantages to the mobile business of today, but there are many considerations to bear in mind when choosing your hosting provider.
The first is the physical location of the servers. All communication with the server will have to go over the internet, and even a small reduction in the quality of the signal will lead to significant slowdown for you as a user. For this reason look for UK VPS hosting as a priority as hosting in other countries has the biggest slowdown on response speeds. For example a UK VPS hosting provider may have a ping (response time) of 30ms, a European VPS hosting provider 36ms, a USA VPS hosting provider 140ms and an Indian VPS hosting provider 200ms. Since every single character typed and mouse click needs to be transmitted to the VPS, even a small increase in the ping to Europe can present a noticeable degradation in performance compared to a UK VPS hosting provider, and the much larger increases in response time for the USA and rest of the world mean that while costs may be cheaper they represent a false economy, and the performance of the VPS will be significantly negatively impacted.
With that in mind, there is still a wide range of UK VPS hosting providers to choose from, and while there may be small increases in responsiveness to be gained by choosing one geographically closer to your main location generally your considerations at this point become the server technology available and the cost. Not all servers are created equal, so it is important to check the servers being used by the VPS provider to ensure that they meet the requirements for your business, and bear in mind that if your load demands are relatively low an old server will still be able to meet your needs without any degradation of service, while if you have high load demands the capacity and capability of the server will become a more dominant feature.
Once price becomes the deciding factor, check for any seasonal offers or similar relating to your chosen UK VPS hosting providers. For example, PAC Web Hosting (www.pacwebhosting.co.uk/offers) currently has a summer VPS hosting offer of 25% off your monthly payments for the next 6 months, or 15% off annual hosting, on top of their normal discounts for paying annually (currently 12 months for the price of 11). Seasonal special offers can make a big difference in the affordability of your chosen servers, and move a server that better suits your requirements into your affordable price bracket. Knowing your favourite UK VPS hosting providers previous offers can help you make a decision on the length of time you want to agree to a contract for so you are in a position to take advantage of any offers which they repeat in future years, to let you get the UK VPS hosting solution that best suits your needs at a price that doesn’t break the bank.