What is better for a web server dedicated physical server or virtualization on it?

Question

Virtualization

Hello!
Tell. please, who thinks. We have a question.
We have a website, it works on the Apache web server on a dedicated physical server on ubuntu.
One company that is going to do an audit of the server and the site tells us diligently that this is not correct and you need to do virtualization on this physical server and already place everything on it, the web server, database, site, etc. What will be the performance gain and so on. generally it's better.
How is it better anyway? are they saying right?

Thanks everyone for the replies.

Answer 1

You've been lied to about performance. So think about their competence.
Theoretically, of course, you can squeeze more out of a virtual machine than out of physical hardware, by tuning the core and variables, but in practice it is unlikely that anyone will do this.
Pluses actually are shown in convenience of service. Virtual roles are easy and with a minimum of packages. On the other hand, you can install docker and greatly reduce littering in the system.
In general, you ask them what exactly they will tune and why. A normal specialist will have something to tell you. And explain clearly and understandably.

Answer 2

are they saying right?

Well, performance gains can't happen because resources are limited and virtualization adds layers of abstraction that aren't free.

How is it better anyway?

It is really more convenient with virtual machines, since then it will be possible, for example, to transfer the database to another physical server.
If everything sits on hardware, migration will be more difficult.
On the other hand, performance will be higher on bare metal.

Answer 3

One company that is going to do an audit of the server and the site tells us diligently that this is not correct and you need to do virtualization on this physical server and already place everything on it, the web server, database, site, etc. What will be the performance gain and so on. generally it's better.

Fundamentally agree. DB on one Wirth, site on another.
And my case on the topic. Over the years, the load increased and the iron had to be replaced with a more modern one. However, the scheme for building a portal from a case has justified itself and is still working today.
P.S.
virtual machines give room for maneuver

Answer 4

It will be more convenient and safer if done well. It will not be faster - there is an overhead.

Answer 5

If you use virtualization, raise several virtual machines with different roles (web proxy, web backend, sql), spread your site across these machines, you can get a performance boost. If you just transfer your site from a physical server to a virtual server and add a virtualization layer, then there will be a decrease in performance.
But even with a decrease in performance, I am for virtualization. it allows you to solve a bunch of other problems.
Backups, snapshots, migration, testing.

Answer 6

The only moment when virtualization can speed up is the easy inclusion of lazy writes for file systems, when the request for forced writing of data to the disk will be ignored by the file system and the real write will be postponed until later (this can be done without virtualization, using the file system of the same ext4, you can also enable forced write buffering, for example, in istgt (iscsi daemon) for network volumes).
Such a setting can significantly increase the speed of even databases (for writing), but at the expense of a huge risk of data loss in case of work failures .
In no case should you do this for work, but you can also use the initial quick deployment of the database for testing (when there are many records in the database, the reliability of which is not required).
ps Either you misunderstood something, or you are driving these advisers into the neck
. Virtualization and containerization are for ease of administration, it is especially convenient to transfer installed applications to another machine, even with other hardware, with almost no configuration, simply by transferring the virtual machine image (and if network nas then even without it, almost instantly - turned off here turned on there)
From a security point of view, containerization separates (not necessarily, but this is the default) the real network of another virtual local area, it turns out application isolation without special firewall settings, someone even likes it, maybe that's why they advised?

Answer 7

>We have a website, it works on the Apache web server on a dedicated physical server on ubuntu.
The question is very vague and vague.
Does the site code allow load parallelization by adding cores? where are the main performance plugs? in io, cpu, RAM? mysql webserver?
plus VPS that you can always add resources, upgrade the server - add cpu cores, RAM.
physical advantages. servers that the resources are entirely yours. it will be more expensive to upgrade here.
so the task needs to be more specific.