Each personal computer or server is run by an Operating System - the low-level software which communicates with the hardware, including peripheral devices such as a mouse or a printer, along with any applications that are currently installed on the system. Any program input using a command line or a Graphical User Interface (GUI) is processed by sending an Application Program Interface (API) request to the Operating System. On a web server, any app runs within the parameters defined by the OS as well - priority, physical memory, processing time, and so on. This goes for both standard website scripts and server-side software such as a media server. In case a virtual server is set up on a physical one, there can be two independent Operating Systems, referred to as guest OS and host OS, which means that you can set up a different software environment on a single machine.
Multiple OS in VPS Hosting
In case you pick one of our virtual private server plans, you'll have as many as three different Operating Systems to choose from - CentOS, Debian and Ubuntu. They're all Linux distributions and we offer them instead of offering just one OS, because the apps that you might choose to run on the server may have specific requirements regarding the software environment. Each of these three has certain pros with regard to the available plans that you can later install, but what is common between them is the fact that they're really secure and reliable and have huge communities that support them. The web hosting Control Panel options for the VPS accounts depend on your OS choice, in order to give you more flexibility. In case you order the virtual server with one OS and you need a different one later, our tech support team can easily reinstall the VPS with the new one in just a few minutes. We also offer the option to keep the Operating System on your server up-to-date on a weekly basis.
Multiple OS in Dedicated Web Hosting
The dedicated server packages that we offer come with as many as three different Operating Systems to select from. They are all Linux distributions - Ubuntu, CentOS and Debian, and not only do they have no license charges, but they are also considered to be among the most stable and secure OSs. We provide three different ones as each one of them is supported by a different community. The packages that you could add on your hosting server are different and this may matter in case you want to install some piece of software with particular requirements about the hosting environment. In this light, the hosting Control Panel that you can select for the dedicated server is also determined by the Operating System that you'll pick. You may choose any of the three Operating Systems throughout the order process, but if needed, we can always install the server anew with another one upon your request. As an optional service that you may add to the plan any time, we can update your OS regularly in order to keep it as risk-free as possible.