We’ve recently made virtual machines available on zenConsole to help you simplify your business with a few clicks. They are a lower-cost alternative to renting a full server and provide an elastic, reliable way to deploy applications near your users worldwide. Below, we’ll briefly go over the basics of virtual machines and how they work. If you’re already familiar and don’t need a refresher, please skip to the next section titled “Why do I need virtual machines?”

At its core, you can think of a VPC as a private cloud within a public cloud. It’s similar to a private cloud in function. Instead of being hosted and maintained on-premises in the way of traditional company-owned data centers, however, VPCs are hosted off premises by a public cloud provider. If desired, a VPC can also serve as a secure, convenient bridge between your public and private clouds to form a hybrid cloud.