What Actually is Cloud Website Hosting?
What is cloud website hosting in fact? The word 'cloud' seems to be very trendy in today's information technology, Internet and hosting terminology. In spite of that, just a select few in fact are informed about what cloud hosting is. Perhaps it is a good idea to inform yourself about cloud website hosting services. To render a quite lengthy story short, we will firstly let you in on what cloud hosting is not.
1. Cloud Website Hosting is Not Limited to a Remote Disk Storage Exclusively.
1. Furnishing a remote file storage service, which comprises one single data storage appliance for all customers, does not convert any specific web hosting supplier into an authentic cloud website hosting plans provider.
The cPanel web hosting companies dub the ability to deliver remote disk storage services a cloud website hosting service. Up till now there is nothing wrong with the cloud terminology, but... we are discussing web hosting solutions, not remote disk storage services for private or business needs. There's constantly one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to dub a shared web hosting solution, based on a one-server web hosting platform, just like cPanel, a "cloud website hosting" service. This is so because the remaining pieces of the whole web hosting platform must be operating in precisely the same manner - this does not refer only to the remote file storage. The remaining services entailed in the whole web hosting process also must be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's really hard. A very small number of hosting vendors can actually do it.
2. It Entails Domains, E-mail Box Accounts, Databases, FTPs, Control Panels, etc.
Cloud website hosting is not restricted to a remote disk storage solely. We are talking about a hosting solution, serving countless domain names, online portals, email accounts, and so on, are we not?
To dub a web hosting service a "cloud website hosting" one calls for a lot more than delivering simply remote data storage mounts (or perchance physical servers). The mail server(s) must be dedicated just to the electronic mail related services. Doing nothing different than these concrete tasks. There might be only one or possibly a whole pack of electronic mail servers, based on the overall load produced. To have an actual cloud website hosting solution, the remote database servers should be performing as one, regardless of their real number. Doing nothing else. The same is valid for the users' hosting Control Panels, the File Transfer Protocol, etc.
3. There are Cloud Domain Servers (DNSs) too.
The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of a genuine cloud website hosting firm will support numerous server farm facility sites on different continents.
Here's an instance of a DNS of a true cloud website hosting plans provider:
dns1.dornanhosting.com
dns2.dornanhosting.com
If such a Domain Name Server is offered by your web hosting distributor, it's not a sure thing that there is a cloud hosting platform in use, but you can definitely be sure when you perceive a Domain Name Server like the one below:
dns658.hostgator.com
dns659.hostgator.com
that there isn't any cloud hosting platform. This type of DNS simply demonstrates that the hosting platform in use is one-server based. Possibly it's cPanel. cPanel is a single-server web hosting platform and maintains a market share of more than 98%. In cPanel's case, a single server handles all web hosting services (web, mail, DNS, databases, FTP, CP(s), web site files, etc.).
Remote File Storage - The Distorted Interpretation of Cloud Website Hosting.
So, a cloud website hosting solution is not limited only to a remote file storage service, as lots of hosting vendors wish it was. Unfortunately for them, if that was the case, the majority of the file service providers would have been categorized as cloud web hosting ones a long time ago! They are not categorized as such, since they plainly offer file hosting solutions, not cloud hosting solutions. The file web hosting platform looks indeed quite plain, in comparison with the web hosting platform. The remote data storage platform is not a cloud web hosting platform. It cannot be, because it's just one tiny part of the whole cloud web hosting platform. There's plenty more to be discovered in the cloud hosting platform: the hosting Control Panel cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the Domain Name Server cloud, the File Transfer Protocol cloud, the email cloud and... in the near future, possibly a number of new clouds we currently don't know about will turn up unexpectedly.
Business | Corporate | Enterprise | Starter |
Unlimited storage | Unlimited storage | Unlimited storage | Unlimited storage |
Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth |
5 websites hosted | Unlimited websites hosted | Unlimited websites hosted | 1 website hosted |
A$10.73 / month | A$21.47 / month | A$27.01 / month | A$5.91 / month |