Linode is a cloud-hosting company that offers virtual private servers in a number of data centers worldwide at affordable prices, billed by the hour. Linode also refers to specific types of servers as “Linode XX GB”, eg Linode 16 GB, based on how much RAM they provide. This is similar to how DigitalOcean refers to their VPSs as “Droplets”.

How Do These Virtual Machines Work?

Virtual computing means that a physical computer acts and performs like several computers that host several servers. But the trick is that these computers are actually invisible, meaning they don’t really exist in real life What the physical computer does is simulate their existence.

That’s why virtual machines are more cost-effective than having multiple physical servers. It’s also easier to control the resources. They also don’t take up as much space as physical servers do, and allow cloud providers like Linode to effectively share the resources of a dedicated server with multiple users.

Why Use Linode’s Servers?

Linode’s servers offer affordable and easy-to-use options with lots of features for developers and people who want to develop independent online projects. Linode also offers plenty of storage space, giving you plenty of room to sort out your projects’ data and files. There are also several Linode Alternatives that offer similar services in different data centers.

Linode’s servers are also pretty fast which is a huge asset, meaning your websites will load pretty quickly.

What Can You Do With the Linode Servers?

The shared CPU Linode is an affordable solution for general workloads. It offers everything you need to develop a range of cloud applications, whether they’re personal projects or enterprise apps:

• You can use the shared CPU as a game server, to run a website, or as a container cluster.
• You can also tailor the configuration to your own needs – starting from 1 vCPU and 1GB RAM you can go all the way to 32 vCPUs and 192GB to match the complexity of your workload.
• The shared CPU plan offers ten different configurations, giving you plenty of options to find the one best suited to your project or business.
• You can deploy container clusters to shared instances (a process allowing you to access the same object or instance of a class anywhere in your project) using popular container orchestration tools.

The high-memory Linode servers enable you to run memory-intensive applications in a cost-effective way, on dedicated CPUs. They’re a great option when you need more RAM, but don’t necessarily need or want to increase vCPUs or storage.

These Linodes are optimized for caches and in-memory databases, making them perfect for high-performance querying:

• You can store larger amounts of data in the system memory, which speeds up retrieval times, thereby increasing the performance of your app.
• You can run workloads that only require enterprise-level performance, requiring large amounts of RAM memory and 100% of the CPU resources, round the clock.
• You can perform in-memory processing, aka run queries on queries on large data volumes. These Linodes enable you to quickly get your query results.
• These Linodes are completely dedicated servers, meaning you won’t have to compete for resources with other users. The vCPU threads are exclusively assigned to cores, as are SMT threads to the hypervisor.
• You don’t have to pay for what you don’t use. You can configure compute instance (a fully managed cloud-based workstation) to the unique requirements of your app. The high memory plans put a priority on the RAM over other resources.
• Use the high-memory compute instances for memory-intensive workloads.

Conclusion

Linode servers can answer different types of user needs. If you want something simpler, affordable, but still powerful that’ll perform superbly, there it is the shared CPU Linode. And if you need that extra power, for memory-demanding applications and some really intensive projects, then there’s high-memory Linode.

Hope this article answers your most pressing questions about what is Linode, their servers and how you can use them.

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