Verio states:
"A Virtual Private Server is a revolutionary hosting environment that gives you your own Unix virtual machine. Each VPS is a private and PROTECTED area that operates as an independent server.

"Verio's VPS was developed to provide small-to medium sized businesses an affordable hosting solution without compromising PERFORMANCE, SECURITY, AND FLEXIBILITY. Because a dedicated server is too expensive for most businesses, we offer an alternative solution: our advanced Virtual Private Server. The VPS allows several businesses to distribute the cost of the hardware, software, system maintenance, and network connectivity without losing the control and flexibility they would enjoy with a dedicated server.

"Perhaps the benefits of our VPS are best described in an analogy. Think of the VPS as a condominium and the physical server as a complex of condominiums. Within this complex certain resources like the land, parking lot and clubhouse are shared. However, your condo is your own space that is separate and protected from the other condos. You decide how your condo will be decorated, not your neighbor or the complex manager. On the other hand, the complex manager takes care of mowing the lawn and cleaning the pool, so you don't have to hassle with these tasks. Best of both worlds, right?"

They are state:

"Each VPS resides in an independent space that is protected from other customers."

My question is, s this just a virtual hosting plan or can they really host you in an "independent space?" The URL is: http://home.verio.net/products/hosting/vps/

A Happy New Year to all!

<<MOD NOTE>> Fixed Spelling of 'Verio' for better serach results.<</MOD NOTE>>

Most VPS technology divides one physical server into a number of independent virtual servers - each with their own kernel, etc. It has the ability to limit total physical server resources used by each individual virtual server. So you pay for 30% of CPU and 30% of memory, that's what you get, no more - and the other virtual servers get no more than they are allocated. Another virtual server can crash and the rest of the virtual servers on the same physical box can remain working. freevsd.com, ensim.com and others make the SW to do this.
I've never worked with this so can;t tell you how well it actually works.

My sites are currently hosted at AIT, Inc, which uses a virtual private server setup somewhat similar to what you describe. It has worked OK for the static pages on my sites. The primary reason I'm in the process of making a change is that this setup does NOT work well for dynamic pages, or in my case, a Perl based discussion forum.

AIT's setup does NOT guarantee a fixed CPU and memory share for each client on the machine. Instead, what they appear to have done is given pure HTTP processes a relatively high priority, but given Perl or PHP processes a much lower priority -- they are not using mod_perl or mod_php, and are using an older version of Apache. You'd probably want to check VERY carefully before signing an agreement if it's critical that you have your own fixed share of the machine. I don't know enough to know if it's even possible to grant each virtual server a fixed share, like your company claims, but I do know that other hosts are not doing it that way.

[For the record, there are many, many other problems with AIT, but they've been covered elsewhere. For cheap fast hosting of static sites, with NO support from AIT, they are probably a good deal: you have access to both your Apache and Sendmail config files. For ANYTHING else, stay AWAY. Both their billing AND their support departments are clueless, and will blame you for any problems that occur. Regardless of the question (why isn't PHP working?), tech support ALWAYS wants you to send them the results of a trace route.]

PoolDoc

OLM just released plans using the Ensim virtual environments. They guarantee resources plus allow you to burst to the full capabilities of the server. Everything else seems similar, root access dedicated kernal and configs and great GUI's that can do everything.

They put up a new site a http://olmnetworks.com

TWA