What is a vCore in VPS Hosting?

Anyone interested in a Virtual Private Server will quickly come across the term vCore in the performance descriptions of the various VPS hosting offerings on the market. The more vCores a VPS hosting provides, the more expensive it usually is, and customers naturally expect more performance. So, what exactly does the term vCore mean in the context of a VPS hosting?

What does the term vCore mean?

In the hosting industry and in relation to a VPS hosting, the term vCore refers to virtual CPU cores. It is about the number of virtual processor cores provided to a customer on a virtual server.

Caution: The term Vcore (written with a capital "V" and a lowercase "c") is used in electronics and information technology in relation to processors for Core Voltage, i.e., the processor core voltage!

While with Dedicated Servers, where the entire system's performance can be exclusively used, customers can be assured of dedicated CPU cores, with Virtual Servers, only virtual processor cores, i.e., a certain number of vCores, can be allocated. However, it is not always entirely clear what performance a vCore actually brings.

What performance does a vCore bring?

A blanket statement cannot be made about the specific performance potential of a vCore. However, to better understand and classify it, one must delve into the concept of threading in the realm of processors.

The technology known as "Hyper-Threading" was originally developed by Intel but has since been adopted by other manufacturers like AMD. It involves a special implementation of hardware-based multithreading within the processor itself. By utilising multiple complete sets of registers and a complex control unit, threading allows the processor to internally process two parallel streams of instructions and data.

Simplified, threading effectively enables the creation of two physical processor cores, even though only a single physical processor core actually exists. This means that, for example, in a 4-core processor, one can effectively work with 8 cores (also known as "threads").

This technology can also be utilised in the virtualisation of servers. This allows for more individual processor cores to be made available for a VPS hosting. However, in practice, this may not work as well as it sounds. After all, a "thread" is not a full-fledged processor core with full performance.

Hosting providers use the term vCore to denote the processor cores virtually provided. Theoretically, these should be equivalent to a "thread" and provide 100% of the performance to the customer. However, in practice, this is often not the case. Particularly with budget VPS hosting, systems are typically oversubscribed. This means that more resources have been allocated to the system than are actually available. As a result, the customer may effectively only utilise around 50% of a "thread" as a vCore, as they share the full performance with other customers on the system. During high loads, the processor cannot process tasks in parallel but rather sequentially, leading to increased latency and longer loading times.

How many vCores should a VPS hosting have?

While it cannot be definitively stated how much performance an individual vCore actually delivers in VPS hosting, it is generally assumed that a higher number of vCores will result in higher performance. This is especially true when comparing different VPS hosting plans offered by a specific provider.

Comparing offers from two different providers, each offering a similar number of vCores, can be more challenging. Without further information on the technical implementation of each VPS hosting, it is difficult to determine definitively which virtual server offers higher performance. For instance, a VPS hosting with 4 vCores, where the customer can utilise 100% of the performance at all times, may be a more powerful system overall than a VPS hosting with 6 vCores, where only 50% of the actual processor core's performance is available.

Our article is based on our own experiences and research, as well as information from external sources.

Sources & further links on the topic:
https://www.intel.de/content/www/de/de/gaming/resources/hyper-threading.html (Information on Hyper-Threading)

Image credit:
Gerd Altmann on Pixabay