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 essential, albeit underrated task. Not only can an update boost the performance of your websites, but it will also save you a lot of issues later on. An update may be released for a number of reasons, the most frequent being to fix newly discovered security holes, which may allow third-party people to access and change the content you have on the hosting server. You will also see an improved performance of your web apps as updates might also be released for better compatibility between the Os and the configuration it operates on so as to get the most out of the hardware. In addition, if you keep your apps up-to-date, they may need a later OS version which will have the needed software dependencies and will permit them to work adequately.