A virtual or a dedicated hosting machine is a standalone machine, that has its own Operating System and keeping the latter up-to-date is an essential, although underestimated task. Not only can an update enhance the overall performance of your internet sites, but it will also save you lots of issues later on. An update may be released for many different reasons, the most widespread being to fix recently discovered security holes, which may permit third-party individuals to access and change the content which you have on the hosting machine. You may also see an improved functionality of your web applications because updates might also be released for better compatibility between the Operating System and the configuration it operates on so as to get the most out of the hardware. Moreover, if you keep your programs up-to-date, they could need a later OS version that will have the needed software dependencies and will enable them to work effectively.