What Actually is Cloud Web Hosting?
What is cloud web hosting in reality? The word 'cloud' appears to be very fashionable in today's computing, World Wide Web and hosting jargon. Yet, only a select few really can say what cloud hosting is. Perhaps it is a good idea to educate yourself about cloud web hosting services. To render a very long story concise, we will firstly reveal to you what cloud hosting is not.
1. Cloud Web Hosting is Not Confined to a Remote Data Storage Only.
1. Providing a remote disk storage service, which comprises one single data storage appliance for all clients, does not transform any particular web hosting service provider into a genuine cloud web hosting provider.
The cPanel web hosting distributors name the ability to deliver remote data storage services a cloud web hosting service. So far there is nothing wrong with the cloud terminology, but... we are discussing hosting services, not remote disk storage solutions for individual or corporate purposes. There's constantly one "but", isn't there? It's not enough to call a shared web hosting service, based on a one-server hosting platform, precisely like cPanel, a "cloud web hosting" solution. That's because the remaining parts of the entire hosting platform must be operating in exactly the same way - this does not refer solely to the remote disk storage. The other services entailed in the whole hosting process also have to be remote, isolated and "clouded". And that's extremely problematical. A very scanty number of hosting distributors can really attain it.
2. It Entails Domains, E-mail Aliases, Databases, FTPs, CPs, etc.
Cloud web hosting is not limited to a remote data storage solely. We are talking about a hosting solution, serving plenty of domain names, websites, mailbox aliases, and so on, aren't we?
To name a hosting service a "cloud web hosting" one requires a lot more than furnishing merely remote file storage mounts (or maybe physical servers). The email server(s) must be dedicated only to the electronic mail connected services. Executing nothing else than these specific assignments. There might be just one or possibly a whole stack of email servers, determined by the overall server load produced. To have a real cloud web hosting service, the remote database servers should be functioning as one, regardless of their actual amount. Doing nothing else. The same is valid for the customers' CPs, the File Transfer Protocol, and so on.
3. There are Cloud Domain Name Servers (DNSs) too.
The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of a real cloud web hosting provider will support multiple server farm sites on different continents.
Here's an instance of a Domain Name Server of a genuine cloud web hosting supplier:
dns1.deployhosting.net
dns2.deployhosting.net
If such a DNS is supplied by your hosting supplier, it's not a sure thing that there is a cloud hosting platform in use, but you can definitely be convinced when you discern a Domain Name Server like the one underneath:
dns658.hostgator.com
dns659.hostgator.com
that there isn't any cloud hosting platform. This sort of DNS simply shows that the web hosting platform in use is one-server based. Perhaps it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-server web hosting solution and has a 98+ percent market share. In cPanel's case, one physical machine copes with all web hosting services (web, electronic mail, DNS, databases, FTP, hosting Control Panel(s), web site files, etc.).
Remote File Storage - The Warped Definition of Cloud Web Hosting.
So, a cloud web hosting solution is not limited exclusively to a remote disk storage service, as plenty of hosting service providers wish it was. Unfortunately for them, if that was the case, the majority of the file service providers would have been referred to as cloud hosting ones long ago! They are not categorized as such, as they plainly furnish file web hosting solutions, not cloud web hosting services. The file web hosting platform appears indeed quite plain, when compared to the web hosting platform. The remote disk storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, as it's merely one tiny constituent 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 DNS cloud, the FTP cloud, the mail cloud and... in the not too distant future, possibly a number of new clouds we presently are not familiar with will turn up out of the blue.
| Express | Pro | Turbo | Standard |
| 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 |
| $6.42 / month | $12.83 / month | $18.83 / month | $4.00 / month |