A virtual or a dedicated hosting machine is a standalone machine, that has its own Os and maintaining the latter up-to-date is a vital, although underestimated task. Not only can an update enhance the performance of your internet sites, but it will also save you a great deal of issues in the future. An update may be released for a variety of reasons, the most common being to fix newly identified security holes, which may allow third-party people to access and modify the content which you have on the server. You may also see an improved overall performance of your web programs since updates may also be released for better compatibility between the Operating System and the configuration it works on as a way to get the most out of the hardware. Also, if you keep your applications up-to-date, they might also need a later Operating system version that will have the required software dependencies and will permit them to work adequately.