What In Fact is Cloud Hosting?

What is cloud hosting actually? The word 'cloud' appears to be quite fashionable in today's computing, Internet and web hosting jargon. Yet, only a select few actually can tell what cloud hosting is. Perchance it is a good idea to educate yourself about cloud hosting services. To make a very long tale concise, we will first tell you what cloud hosting is not.

1. Cloud Hosting is Not Confined to a Remote File Storage Only.

1. Furnishing a remote file storage solution, which involves one single disk storage appliance for all customers, does not convert any particular hosting firm into a genuine cloud hosting corporation.

The cPanel hosting suppliers name the ability to deliver remote file storage services a cloud hosting solution. Up to now there is nothing bad about the cloud designation, but... we are talking about web hosting solutions, not remote data storage solutions for private or corporate needs. There's always one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to dub a shared hosting service, powered by a single-server hosting platform, exactly like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" service. That's because the remaining fractions of the entire web hosting platform must be operating in precisely the same way - this does not relate only to the remote data storage. The remaining services involved in the entire web hosting procedure also have to be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's really problematical. A very meager number of service providers can actually attain it.

2. It Encompasses Domain Names, Email Aliases, Databases, File Transfer Protocols, Control Panels, and so on.

Cloud hosting is not limited to a remote disk storage exclusively. We are talking about a web hosting service, serving plenty of domains, web pages, mails, and so on, right?

To dub a web hosting service a "cloud hosting" one demands a lot more than offering merely remote file storage mounts (or probably physical servers). The mail server(s) have to be devoted exclusively to the electronic mail related services. Executing nothing else than these given procedures. There might be just one single or probably an entire set of electronic mail servers, determined by the total load produced. To have an actual cloud hosting service, the remote database servers should be working as one, regardless of their real quantity. Doing nothing different. The same goes for the customers' CPs, the FTP, etc.

3. There are Cloud Domain Servers (DNSs) too.

The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of an actual cloud hosting supplier will support multiple datacenter facility locations on different continents.

Here's an illustration of a DNS of an authentic cloud hosting packages provider:

dns1.webhostez.com

dns2.webhostez.com

If such a Domain Name Server is supplied by your web hosting services provider, it's not a guarantee that there is a cloud web hosting platform in use, but you can definitely be confident when you notice a Domain Name Server like the one beneath:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud web hosting service. This kind of Domain Name Server plainly indicates that the hosting platform in use is one-server based. Probably 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 physical machine deals with all web hosting services (web, e-mail, DNS, databases, FTP, CP(s), web site files, and so on).

Remote File Storage - The Warped Description of Cloud Hosting.

So, a cloud hosting solution is not confined just to a remote file storage solution, as many web hosting distributors wish it was. Unluckily for them, if that was the case, the majority of the file service providers would have been categorized as cloud hosting ones a long time ago! They are not classified as such, since they merely provide file hosting solutions, not cloud hosting solutions. The file hosting platform looks really very simple, in comparison with the web hosting platform. The remote disk storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, since it's merely one tiny part of the entire cloud web hosting platform. There's plenty more to be discovered in the cloud hosting platform: the web hosting CP cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the Domain Name Server cloud, the File Transfer Protocol cloud, the e-mail cloud and... in the foreseeable future, possibly a few brand new clouds we currently are not familiar with will spring up unexpectedly.