A virtual or a dedicated hosting server is a standalone machine, that has its own Operating System and always keeping the latter up-to-date is an important, albeit underestimated task. Not simply can an update improve the functionality of your sites, but it will also save you a great deal of troubles down the road. An update can be released for a number of reasons, the most common being to fix recently identified security holes, which may allow third-party individuals to access and change the content which you have on the hosting server. You might also see an improved efficiency of your web applications since updates might also be released for better compatibility between the Operating System and the configuration it functions on in order to get the most out of the hardware. Also, if you keep your apps up-to-date, they could need a later Operating system version that will have the necessary software dependencies and will enable them to operate properly.