What Exactly is Cloud Website Hosting?

What is cloud web hosting really? The term 'cloud' appears to be very fashionable in today's IT, Internet and web hosting phraseology. Still, just a select few really can say what cloud hosting is. Perchance it is a fine idea to educate yourself about cloud web hosting services. To render a very lengthy story concise, we will firstly disclose to you what cloud hosting is not.

1. Cloud Web Hosting is Not Limited to a Remote Disk Storage Solely.

1. Delivering a remote disk storage service, which involves one data storage appliance for all customers, does not turn any given hosting provider into a real cloud web hosting solutions provider.

The cPanel web hosting distributors name the ability to offer remote file storage services a cloud web hosting solution. Until now there is nothing bad about the cloud designation, but... we are talking about web hosting solutions, not remote data storage solutions for personal or business needs. There's constantly one "but", isn't there? It's not enough to call a shared hosting solution, powered by a single-server hosting platform, exactly like cPanel, a "cloud web hosting" service. That's because the remaining pieces of the entire hosting platform must be functioning in exactly the same manner - this does not apply solely to the remote disk storage. The rest of the services involved in the whole web hosting process also have to be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's very problematical. Very few web hosting providers can actually attain it.

2. It Includes Domains, Mail Aliases, Databases, File Transfer Protocols, Web Hosting CPs, and so on.

Cloud web hosting is not limited to a remote disk storage only. We are discussing a hosting service, serving numerous domain names, sites, e-mail boxes, and so on, are we not?

To dub a hosting service a "cloud web hosting" one takes a lot more than offering just remote disk storage mounts (or possibly servers). The mail server(s) must be devoted just to the email associated services. Performing nothing else than these concrete tasks. There might be just one or maybe a whole bundle of electronic mail servers, depending on the overall load produced. To have a genuine cloud web hosting service, the remote database servers should be operating as one, irrespective of their real quantity. Executing nothing else. The same is valid for the clients' CPs, the File Transfer Protocol, etc.

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

The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of a genuine cloud web hosting solutions provider will support numerous server farm locations on different continents.

Here's an example of a DNS of an authentic cloud web hosting solutions provider:

dns1.dmzhosting.com

dns2.dmzhosting.com

If such a Domain Name Server is provided by your web hosting company, it's not a sure thing that there is a cloud hosting environment in use, but you can definitely be certain when you spot a DNS like the one underneath:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud hosting service. This sort of DNS plainly shows that the hosting platform in use is one-server based. Perhaps it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-single-server hosting solution and holds a market share of more than 98%. In cPanel's case, a single physical machine handles all web hosting services (web, email, DNS, databases, File Transfer Protocol, CP(s), web site files, etc.).

Remote File Storage - The Twisted Characterization of Cloud Web Hosting.

So, a cloud web hosting service is not restricted just to a remote disk storage service, as plenty of web hosting firms wish it was. Sadly for them, if that was the case, most of the file hosting vendors would have been classified as cloud web hosting ones long ago! They are not categorized as such, because they merely deliver file hosting solutions, not cloud web 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 merely one tiny component of the whole cloud web hosting platform. There's plenty more to be found in the cloud hosting platform: the Control Panel cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the Domain Name Server cloud, the File Transfer Protocol cloud, the mail cloud and... in the upcoming future, perhaps several new clouds we currently are not informed about will turn up out of nowhere.