The 3 types of Virtual Private Server
A Virtual Private Server (VPS) lets you keep your copy of MT4 or MT5 running permanently without the inconvenience of leaving your home computer on all the time. A VPS also has other advantages such as a more reliable internet connection, and typically lower latency to your broker so that trading requests are processed faster.
It's easy to use a VPS. What you get is a normal copy of Windows, but running remotely. You connect to the VPS using the Remote Desktop Connection app which is already built into your home Windows PC, and then you use the VPS just like any other Windows computer.
But do you know about the 3 different types of VPS?
1. Shared hosting – cheap but limited
One of the most common types of VPS isn't actually a VPS at all.
Many brokers offer cheap VPS services to their clients. But, to save money, some of these broker services are just a type of shared hosting rather than a real VPS. It's virtual, it's private, but it's not actually a server. The broker gives you a remote copy of MT4 or MT5, but you don't get a full remote Windows desktop which you can log into and use like a normal PC.
This shared hosting can be a cheap option if you just want to run a simple EA remotely. But it's more limited than a real VPS. You don't get to log into a full Windows desktop, you don't have the flexibility of running a full remote copy of Windows, and you can only run simple tools in the remote copy of MT4/5.
Most importantly, FX Blue's sophisticated tools such as the Personal Trade Copier, Trade Mirror, or Trading Simulator won't run on this short of cheap shared hosting. They need a proper, real VPS.
2. Hourly billing – powerful, flexible, but expensive
Everyone is used to Amazon deliveries arriving at their door, but did you know that Amazon is also a giant in the world of hosting?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a hugely powerful and versatile computing platform, of which one part – EC2 – is basically a VPS service. You can rent a Windows machine from AWS and run your copy of MT4 of MT5 on it. AWS bills you by the hour – if you just want a super-powerful machine for a couple of hours in order to run a back-test, you can rent that from AWS and pay only for the two hours of usage with no further commitment. There's a huge range of machine types and specifications to choose from, and countless additional services such as machine imaging, load balancing, firewalls, snapshots etc.
FX Blue uses AWS a lot (and also Google's similar Cloud Platform). We really like it. But FX Blue is providing a range of complex web services to hundreds of thousands of traders all over the world, scaling our servers up and down as demand fluctuates, and constantly adding new services.
If you just want a Windows desktop which is available more or less permanently so that you can run your copy of MT4 or MT5, a service such as AWS is expensive (and complicated). You pay a big premium for all the flexibility of the AWS platform which you aren’t using. For equivalent computing power, an hourly-billing platform such as AWS is typically around double the cost of monthly VPS rental.
3. Monthly or annual VPS rental
For most traders, the sweet-spot is more traditional VPS hosting where you commit to a monthly or annual contract rather than billing by the hour.
Specialist VPS providers to the forex market also often have better latency to brokers' servers than a platform such as AWS, and they're much better placed to handle typical support queries from MT4 or MT5 traders. (At FX Blue, we didn't get a human contact to speak to at AWS until our bill reached thousands of dollars per month.)
Forex VPS specialists typically have a range of machines for you to choose from, depending on how many copies of MT4 or MT5 you need to run and what sort of workload they are dealing with. There may also be an option to build a machine to your own specification, choosing the number of processors, the amount of RAM, the size of disk etc.
At FX Blue, we're often asked about VPS services, because many of our users want a way of running our tools such as the trade copiers without tying up their home PC. For the first time, we're partnering with a VPS provider to offer services to our users.
ForexVPS.net already provide servers for globally respected brokerages such as IC Markets and Pepperstone, and now they are offering a discount to all FX Blue users – up to 15% off their standard prices. They can also help with setting up tools such as our Personal Trade Copier on the VPS which they supply.
To get access to this special offer, please use the following URL:
