A virtual or a dedicated hosting machine is a standalone machine, that has its own Operating System and maintaining the latter up-to-date is an essential, though underestimated task. Not only can an update boost the general performance of your internet sites, but it will also save you a lot of issues down the road. An update may be released for many different reasons, the most prevalent being to fix newly discovered security holes, which may permit third-party people to access and modify the content that you have on the server. You might also see an improved functionality of your web applications because updates could also be released for better compatibility between the Os and the configuration it functions on so that you can get the most out of the hardware. Moreover, if you keep your applications up-to-date, they might also need a later OS version that will have the necessary software dependencies and will allow them to function effectively.