What is Cloud Hosting?
What is cloud hosting actually? The term 'cloud' seems to be very modish in today's IT, Internet and web hosting terms. Yet, only a few really are aware of what cloud hosting is. Probably it is a fine idea to inform yourself about cloud hosting services. To make a quite long tale brief, we will firstly describe to you what cloud hosting is not.
1. Cloud Hosting is Not Limited to a Remote Disk Storage Solely.
1. Providing a remote file storage service, which involves one single file storage device for all customers, does not convert any given web hosting vendor into an actual cloud hosting provider.
The cPanel web hosting firms call the ability to offer remote disk storage solutions a cloud hosting service. So far there is nothing bad about the cloud designation, but... we are discussing website hosting services, not remote file storage services for personal or corporate purposes. There's constantly one "but", isn't there? It's not enough to name a shared web hosting service, based on a single-server web hosting environment, just like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" service. This is so because the other parts of the whole hosting platform must be working in exactly the same way - this does not relate solely to the remote data storage. The rest of the services entailed in the entire web hosting procedure also must be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's quite tough. A very meager number of hosting corporations can actually attain it.
2. It Includes Domain Names, Email Addresses, Databases, FTPs, Hosting Control Panels, and so on.
Cloud hosting is not limited to a remote disk storage solely. We are talking about a hosting solution, serving multiple domains, websites, e-mail box accounts, etc., are we not?
To dub a hosting service a "cloud hosting" one needs a lot more than distributing just remote data storage mounts (or perchance physical servers). The email server(s) must be devoted exclusively to the electronic mail related services. Performing nothing different than these given tasks. There might be only one or perhaps an entire group of mail servers, based on the total load generated. To have an actual cloud hosting solution, the remote database servers should be functioning as one, irrespective of their real amount. Carrying out nothing else. The same is valid for the customers' hosting Control Panels, the FTP, etc.
3. There are Cloud Domain Name Servers (DNSs) too.
The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of an authentic cloud hosting solutions provider will support numerous server farm sites on multiple continents.
Here's an example of a Domain Name Server of an authentic cloud hosting firm:
dns1.businesswebsiteserver.com
dns2.businesswebsiteserver.com
If such a DNS is offered by your hosting vendor, it's not a sure thing that there is a cloud web hosting environment in use, but you can definitely be sure when you see a Domain Name Server like the one below:
dns658.hostgator.com
dns659.hostgator.com
that there isn't any cloud web hosting service. This type of DNS plainly manifests that the web hosting environment in use is one-single-server based. Perchance it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-single-server web hosting solution and has a market share of more than 98 percent. In cPanel's case, one physical server copes with all hosting services (web, electronic mail, DNS, databases, File Transfer Protocol, CP(s), web files, and so on).
Remote File Storage - The Distorted Interpretation of Cloud Hosting.
So, a cloud hosting solution is not confined just to a remote disk storage service, as lots of service providers wish it was. Unluckily for them, if that was the case, most of the file web hosting distributors would have been categorized as cloud hosting ones long ago! They are not referred to as such, since they merely supply file hosting services, not cloud hosting solutions. The file web hosting platform looks indeed very plain, in comparison with the hosting platform. The remote disk storage platform is not a cloud web hosting platform. It cannot be, because it's only one simple constituent of the whole cloud hosting platform. There's a lot more to be encountered in the cloud hosting platform: the web 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 several new clouds we presently are not aware of will show up unexpectedly.
| StarterPlus | Professional | Business | 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 |
| 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 |