What Precisely is Cloud Website Hosting?

What is cloud hosting in fact? The word 'cloud' appears to be very fashionable in today's information technology, World Wide Web and hosting parlance. In spite of that, just a select few in fact are familiar with what cloud hosting is. Maybe it is a smart idea to inform yourself about cloud hosting services. To make a very long story brief, we will firstly let you in on what cloud hosting is not.

1. Cloud Hosting is Not Limited to a Remote File Storage Exclusively.

1. Furnishing a remote disk storage solution, which involves one data storage device for all clients, does not transform any specific web hosting provider into a genuine cloud hosting solutions provider.

The cPanel hosting companies name the ability to offer remote data storage solutions a cloud hosting solution. Up to now there is nothing bad about the cloud classification, but... we are discussing hosting solutions, not remote file storage services for individual or business needs. There's invariably one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to dub a shared web hosting solution, driven by a one-server web hosting environment, exactly like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" solution. That's because the other components of the entire web hosting platform must be working in exactly the same way - this does not relate solely to the remote file storage. The rest of the services involved in the entire web hosting process also must be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's really tough. Very few web hosting vendors can really do it.

2. It Includes Domains, Mails, Databases, FTPs, Web Hosting Control Panels, and so on.

Cloud hosting is not confined to a remote data storage only. We are talking about a hosting solution, serving countless domains, web pages, mail addresses, etc., right?

To call a web hosting service a "cloud hosting" one needs a lot more than supplying merely remote data storage mounts (or perchance servers). The e-mail server(s) must be devoted solely to the electronic mail associated services. Carrying out nothing different than these concrete assignments. There might be just one single or maybe an entire array of e-mail servers, depending on the overall load generated. To have a genuine cloud hosting solution, the remote database servers should be operating as one, regardless of their real number. Performing nothing else. The same is valid for the clients' web hosting CPs, the FTP, and so on.

3. There are Cloud Domain Name Servers (DNSs) as well.

The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of a genuine cloud hosting corporation will support multiple server farm facility sites on different continents.

Here's an illustration of a Domain Name Server of an authentic cloud hosting distributor:

dns1.extrahoster.com

dns2.extrahoster.com

If such a DNS is supplied by your hosting provider, it's not a guarantee that there is a cloud hosting platform in use, but you can absolutely be sure when you discern a DNS like the one below:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud web hosting service. This type of Domain Name Server merely exhibits that the web hosting platform in use is one-single-server based. Perhaps it's cPanel. cPanel is a single-server web hosting platform and holds a market share of more than 98%. In cPanel's case, one single server is responsible for all hosting services (web, mail, DNS, databases, File Transfer Protocol, hosting CP(s), web site files, and so on).

Remote File Storage - The Twisted Characterization of Cloud Hosting.

So, a cloud hosting service is not confined simply to a remote disk storage solution, as plenty of web hosting providers wish it was. Sadly for them, if that was the case, the majority of the file web hosting providers would have been categorized as cloud hosting ones a long time ago! They are not categorized as such, since they merely furnish file hosting services, not cloud web hosting services. The file web hosting platform appears indeed quite plain, when compared to the hosting platform. The remote file storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, since it's simply one small constituent of the entire cloud hosting platform. There's plenty more to be found in the cloud web hosting platform: the hosting CP cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the DNS cloud, the File Transfer Protocol cloud, the electronic mail cloud and... in the not too distant future, possibly several new clouds we currently are not informed about will come up unexpectedly.