What Worldstream manages, and what you manage
Quick answer
Worldstream manages the physical layer: the hardware, the facility, power, cooling and the network uplink, plus the hypervisor on Flexible VPS. You manage everything from the operating system upward: patching, applications, data, backups and who has access. Colocation shifts more onto you, since you supply the hardware itself; dedicated servers and Flexible VPS shift more onto Worldstream at the hardware layer, but the operating system and everything running on it stays yours either way.
This split isn't unique to Worldstream. Every hosting provider draws a line somewhere between what they run for you and what stays in your hands, and where that line falls depends on the product. A physical server, a virtual machine and a rack of your own equipment each split the work differently. This article sets out where that line sits for the three product types most people ask about.
Dedicated Servers
A dedicated server is physical hardware built and installed for your sole use, so the split follows the hardware itself. Worldstream owns, houses and keeps the machine running at the infrastructure level; you own everything that happens on top of it, starting with the operating system. See Bare Metal Compute vs. Dedicated Servers if you're weighing a dedicated server against its more on-demand sibling product.
| Worldstream handles | You handle |
|---|---|
| The physical server and its hardware lifecycle | The operating system you choose, and keeping it patched |
| The data centre facility, power and cooling | Applications, data and configuration on the server |
| The physical network uplink to the server | User accounts and access management within the OS |
| Out-of-band management access to the hardware (BMC/IPMI) | Backing up your own data, and testing that a restore actually works |
| Diagnosing and resolving infrastructure-level hardware faults | Firewall rules and security settings inside the OS |
Root access on a dedicated server means exactly that: full control, and full responsibility, for what runs on it. A patching routine is the part of this split people underestimate most often, see Patch management: building an update strategy for your server for how to build one that doesn't rely on remembering.
Flexible VPS
A Flexible VPS adds one more layer to the split: the hypervisor. Worldstream runs the physical hardware and the hypervisor that carves it into virtual machines, so the boundary sits at your guest operating system rather than at the metal. Day-to-day management inside that boundary, starting, stopping, resizing and redeploying the VPS itself, is covered in Managing a Flexible VPS.
| Worldstream handles | You handle |
|---|---|
| The physical hardware underneath the VPS | The guest operating system and keeping it patched |
| The hypervisor and virtualisation layer | Applications, data and configuration inside the VPS |
| The data centre facility, power and cooling | User accounts, SSH keys and root access within the guest OS |
| The network uplink up to your VPS | Enabling and configuring backups or snapshots, and testing restores |
| The underlying storage platform your virtual disks sit on | In-guest firewall rules and security hardening |
A snapshot or a backup being available as a feature doesn't mean it's protecting you automatically: enabling it, setting a schedule and retention that fits your data, and actually testing a restore are still on your side of the line. How many backups do you actually need? works through that decision in more depth.
Colocation
Colocation moves the line the furthest in your direction. You supply the physical server or rack equipment; Worldstream supplies the building, the power, the cooling and the network it plugs into. Everything about the hardware itself, choosing it, maintaining it, replacing a failed part, is yours, in the same way it would be if the equipment sat in a facility you ran yourself. Colocation vs. dedicated servers vs. cloud covers how this trade-off compares against letting Worldstream own the hardware too.
| Worldstream handles | You handle |
|---|---|
| The building, power feeds and cooling | The physical server or equipment itself, and its maintenance |
| Rack space and physical security of the facility | The operating system and everything running on it |
| The network uplink from the rack to the internet | Your own hardware warranty and replacement arrangements |
| Physical access control to the facility, arranged in advance through Datacenter Visits | Backups, patching and access management, exactly as if the hardware sat in your own building |
The line always sits at the operating system
Across all three products, one boundary doesn't move: the moment an operating system is running, whether on hardware Worldstream owns or hardware you brought yourself, everything inside it is your responsibility. That includes the obvious things, applications and data, and the easy-to-forget ones: who still has an account on the system, whether the firewall rules match what's actually running, and whether a backup you configured months ago still restores cleanly today.