A virtual or a dedicated hosting server is a standalone machine, which has its own Operating System and keeping the latter up-to-date is an important, although underestimated task. Not simply can an update enhance the performance of your websites, but it can also save you a lot of problems down the road. An update may be released for several reasons, the most common being to fix recently discovered security holes, which may enable third-party people to access and alter the content which you have on the hosting machine. You will also see an improved overall performance of your web programs because updates might also be released for better compatibility between the Os and the configuration it functions on so as to get the most out of the hardware. Also, if you keep your applications up-to-date, they might need a later OS version that will have the needed software dependencies and will allow them to function effectively.