What Does Virtual Dedicated Server Mean?
A virtual dedicated server (VDS) is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud offering that allows users to provision an isolated server over the internet. It provides functionality and resources similar to an in-house server but is managed on a rental basis by a cloud service provider.
A VDS provides small to full-scale server instances, depending on the provider’s resource requirements and capabilities.
Techopedia Explains Virtual Dedicated Server
As one of the most popular cloud service offerings, a VDS provides users the ability to lease a managed but dedicated server to develop, deploy and host web applications. Once provisioned to a client, a VDS is not shared with other customers and, thus, does not offer multi-tenancy.
A VDS is a composite of complete server hardware, along with the operating system (OS), which is powered by a remote access layer that allows end users to globally access their server via the Internet.
Although a VDS is similar to a virtual private server (VPS), there are slight differences. A VDS provides a remote dedicated server, while a VPS is a virtual machine (VM) on top of a physical server that hosts VPS instances and shares host machine resources.