What Indeed is Cloud Website Hosting?
What is cloud website hosting indeed? The word 'cloud' seems to be very fashionable in today's IT, World Wide Web and web hosting terminology. Still, only a few actually are aware of what cloud hosting is. Perhaps it is a sensible idea to inform yourself about cloud website hosting services. To make a quite long story brief, we will first let you know what cloud hosting is not.
1. Cloud Website Hosting is Not Limited to a Remote Disk Storage Only.
1. Supplying a remote disk storage service, which involves one data storage appliance for all customers, does not turn any given web hosting firm into an authentic cloud website hosting services provider.
The cPanel hosting firms name the ability to distribute remote disk storage solutions a cloud website hosting solution. Up to now there is nothing wrong with the cloud terminology, but... we are discussing website hosting services, not remote data storage solutions for private or business purposes. There's always one "but", isn't there? It's not enough to name a shared hosting service, based on a single-server web hosting platform, just like cPanel, a "cloud website hosting" service. That's because the other parts of the whole hosting platform must be working in precisely the same way - this does not refer only to the remote disk storage. The other services entailed in the entire web hosting process also must be remote, isolated and "clouded". And that's extremely tough. A very small number of web hosting providers can actually make it.
2. It Includes Domain Names, Mailboxes, Databases, FTPs, Web Hosting Control Panels, etc.
Cloud website hosting is not restricted to a remote disk storage only. We are talking about a hosting service, serving countless domain names, web portals, electronic mail accounts, and so on, right?
To call a hosting service a "cloud website hosting" one needs a lot more than delivering just remote data storage mounts (or possibly servers). The e-mail server(s) have to be devoted exclusively to the e-mail related services. Doing nothing different than these concrete assignments. There might be only one single or maybe a whole pack of email servers, determined by the overall server load created. To have an actual cloud website hosting solution, the remote database servers should be operating as one, irrespective of their actual number. Executing nothing different. The same goes for the users' web hosting Control Panels, the File Transfer Protocol, etc.
3. There are Cloud Domain Servers (DNSs) as well.
The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of a genuine cloud website hosting supplier will support multiple data center facility sites on multiple continents.
Here's an illustration of a Domain Name Server of an authentic cloud website hosting vendor:
dns1.host2netltd.co.uk
dns2.host2netltd.co.uk
If such a Domain Name Server is furnished by your hosting vendor, it's not a guarantee that there is a cloud hosting environment in use, but you can definitely be certain when you spot a Domain Name Server such as the one below:
dns658.hostgator.com
dns659.hostgator.com
that there isn't any cloud web hosting platform. This kind of Domain Name Server merely demonstrates that the hosting environment in use is one-server based. Perhaps it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-server hosting solution and holds a 98+ percent market share. In cPanel's case, one single physical server copes with all hosting services (web, email, DNS, databases, File Transfer Protocol, Control Panel(s), files, and so on).
Remote File Storage - The Distorted Explanation of Cloud Website Hosting.
So, a cloud website hosting service is not confined simply to a remote disk storage solution, as numerous web hosting distributors wish it was. Unfortunately for them, if that was the case, the majority of the file web hosting distributors would have been referred to as cloud hosting ones a long time back! They are not referred to as such, as they merely furnish file web hosting solutions, not cloud hosting services. The file web hosting platform looks indeed very plain, in comparison with the hosting platform. The remote file storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, as it's simply one simple part of the whole cloud web hosting platform. There's plenty more to be found in the cloud web hosting platform: the CP cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the Domain Name Server cloud, the FTP cloud, the e-mail cloud and... in the not too distant future, possibly a few new clouds we presently are not familiar with will come up out of nowhere.
| Professional | Expert | Webmaster | Beginner |
| 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 |
| 30-Day Free Trial | 30-Day Free Trial | 30-Day Free Trial | 30-Day Free Trial |
| $3.92 / month | $8.67 / month | $12.50 / month | $3.00 / month |