What is Cloud Web Hosting?

What is cloud hosting in reality? The word 'cloud' seems to be very trendy in today's IT, Internet and hosting lingo. In spite of that, only a few really can tell what cloud hosting is. Perchance it is a sensible idea to educate yourself about cloud hosting services. To make a quite long tale brief, we will first let you know what cloud hosting is not.

1. Cloud Hosting is Not Limited to a Remote Data Storage Only.

1. Providing a remote file storage service, which comprises one single data storage device for all customers, does not convert any particular web hosting company into a genuine cloud hosting distributor.

The cPanel web hosting companies call the ability to furnish remote file storage solutions a cloud hosting solution. So far there is nothing bad about the cloud labeling, but... we are talking about hosting services, not remote data storage solutions for private or corporate purposes. There's constantly one "but", isn't there? It's not enough to dub a shared hosting solution, powered by a one-server web hosting environment, exactly like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" solution. That's because the remaining components of the whole web hosting platform must be operating in precisely the same way - this does not apply solely to the remote file storage. The rest of the services involved in the entire web hosting process also need to be remote, isolated and "clouded". And that's quite difficult. A very meager number of hosting companies can really accomplish it.

2. It Entails Domains, Mail Addresses, Databases, FTPs, Hosting CPs, etc.

Cloud hosting is not restricted to a remote data storage solely. We are discussing a hosting service, serving many domains, web portals, email box accounts, and so on, right?

To call a web hosting service a "cloud hosting" one takes a lot more than furnishing just remote data storage mounts (or perchance physical servers). The email server(s) must be dedicated just to the email related services. Performing nothing else than these specific assignments. There might be just one single or perhaps an entire stack of electronic mail servers, determined by the overall load produced. To have an authentic cloud hosting service, the remote database servers should be operating as one, regardless of their actual number. Carrying out nothing different. The same is valid for the clients' hosting Control Panels, the File Transfer Protocol, and so on.

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

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

Here's an example of a Domain Name Server of an authentic cloud hosting services provider:

dns1.www.w3cloud.us

dns2.www.w3cloud.us

If such a Domain Name Server is provided by your hosting packages provider, it's not a guarantee that there is a cloud web hosting platform in use, but you can definitely be sure when you discern a Domain Name Server like the one below:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud web hosting platform. This type of DNS plainly shows that the hosting platform in use is one-single-server based. Possibly it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-single-server hosting solution and has a market share of more than 98%. In cPanel's case, one physical machine takes care of all hosting services (web, mail, DNS, databases, FTP, Control Panel(s), web files, and so on).

Remote File Storage - The Twisted Interpretation of Cloud Hosting.

So, a cloud hosting service is not limited simply to a remote data storage service, as lots of hosting companies wish it was. Unfortunately for them, if that was the case, most of the file web hosting providers would have been classified as cloud hosting ones a long time ago! They are not classified as such, because they plainly distribute file web hosting services, not cloud web hosting services. The file hosting platform appears really quite simple, in comparison with the web hosting platform. The remote disk storage platform is not a cloud web hosting platform. It cannot be, since it's just one tiny part of the entire cloud hosting platform. There's a lot more to be discovered 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 electronic mail cloud and... in the upcoming future, maybe several new clouds we presently are not acquainted with will come up unexpectedly.