A virtual or a dedicated hosting server is a standalone machine, that has its own Operating System and maintaining the latter up-to-date is an essential, though underestimated task. Not simply can an update improve the performance of your sites, but it will also save you a great deal of troubles later on. An update can be released for a number of reasons, the most widespread being to fix newly found security holes, which may allow third-party individuals to access and alter the content which you have on the hosting server. You will also see an improved functionality of your web applications since updates could also be released for better compatibility between the Operating System and the configuration it works on in order to 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 necessary software dependencies and will enable them to function properly.