A virtual or a dedicated hosting server is a standalone machine, that has its own Os and keeping the latter up-to-date is an essential, although underrated task. Not simply can an update enhance the general performance of your websites, but it will also save you a great deal of issues later on. An update may be released for several reasons, the most common being to fix newly found security holes, which may allow third-party individuals to access and modify the content you have on the hosting server. You will also see an improved overall performance of your web apps as updates could also be released for better compatibility between the Os and the configuration it works on in order to get the most out of the hardware. Furthermore, if you keep your applications up-to-date, they could also need a later OS version which will have the necessary software dependencies and will enable them to function properly.