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 important, although underrated task. Not only can an update improve the performance of your internet sites, but it could also save you a great deal of issues down the road. An update could be released for a number of reasons, the most widespread being to fix recently found security holes, which may enable third-party individuals to access and modify the content that you have on the hosting machine. You will also see an improved performance of your web programs since updates may also be released for better compatibility between the Os and the configuration it works on so that you can get the most out of the hardware. Furthermore, if you keep your apps up-to-date, they might also need a later Operating system version that will have the required software dependencies and will allow them to work adequately.