A virtual or a dedicated hosting machine is a standalone machine, that has its own Os and maintaining the latter up-to-date is an essential, although underrated task. Not only can an update boost the performance of your websites, but it could also save you a lot of problems later on. An update could be released for several reasons, the most common being to fix newly discovered security holes, which may enable third-party individuals to access and alter the content which you have on the hosting server. You will also see an improved efficiency of your web apps as updates can also be released for better compatibility between the Os and the configuration it operates on so that you can get the most out of the hardware. Also, if you keep your applications up-to-date, they may also need a later Operating system version that will have the necessary software dependencies and will enable them to work properly.