What is Cloud Hosting?

What is cloud hosting actually? The term 'cloud' seems to be very fashionable in today's IT, World Wide Web and web hosting phraseology. Nonetheless, just a select few really can say what cloud hosting is. Possibly it is a clever idea to inform yourself about cloud hosting services. To render a quite lengthy story concise, we will firstly reveal to you what cloud hosting is not.

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

1. Offering a remote disk storage service, which involves one disk storage tool for all customers, does not convert any particular provider into a real cloud hosting firm.

The cPanel web hosting vendors dub the ability to supply remote file storage services a cloud hosting service. Up to now there is nothing wrong with the cloud designation, but... we are discussing web hosting solutions, not remote disk storage solutions for individual or business needs. There's constantly one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to dub a shared hosting service, based on a one-server hosting platform, precisely like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" service. That's because the other components of the whole hosting platform must be working in precisely the same manner - this does not relate solely to the remote data storage. The rest of the services involved in the whole web hosting process also need to be remote, isolated and "clouded". And that's very problematical. A very small number of web hosting firms can actually accomplish it.

2. It Involves Domain Names, Mails, Databases, FTPs, Hosting Control Panels, etc.

Cloud hosting is not limited to a remote disk storage solely. We are talking about a hosting service, serving numerous domain names, sites, mailboxes, etc., aren't we?

To name a hosting service a "cloud hosting" one requires a lot more than providing merely remote data storage mounts (or perchance physical servers). The electronic mail server(s) must be dedicated solely to the e-mail related services. Carrying out nothing else than these concrete assignments. There might be just one or perhaps an entire assortment of mail servers, determined by the overall load generated. To have a true cloud hosting solution, the remote database servers should be working as one, regardless of their real number. Performing nothing different. The same goes for the customers' hosting Control Panels, the File Transfer Protocol, etc.

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

The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of a real cloud hosting services provider will support numerous datacenter sites on multiple continents.

Here's an instance of a Domain Name Server of a true cloud hosting supplier:

dns1.efiservers.com

dns2.efiservers.com

If such a Domain Name Server is provided by your web hosting supplier, it's not a guarantee that there is a cloud hosting platform in use, but you can definitely be certain when you observe a DNS like the one underneath:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud hosting service. This sort of Domain Name Server plainly manifests that the web hosting platform in use is one-single-server based. Perhaps it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-single-server web hosting solution and holds a market share of more than ninety eight percent. In cPanel's case, one single server handles all web hosting services (web, electronic mail, DNS, databases, FTP, web hosting CP(s), web site files, and so on).

Remote File Storage - The Distorted Description of Cloud Hosting.

So, a cloud hosting solution is not limited simply to a remote file storage service, as many hosting vendors wish it was. Unfortunately for them, if that was the case, most of the file hosting corporations would have been categorized as cloud web hosting ones a long time ago! They are not categorized as such, as they simply distribute file hosting solutions, not cloud hosting solutions. The file hosting platform looks really very simple, when compared to the web hosting platform. The remote data storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, since it's simply one tiny part of the whole cloud hosting platform. There's a lot more to be encountered in the cloud web hosting platform: the web hosting CP cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the Domain Name Server cloud, the FTP cloud, the email cloud and... in the upcoming future, possibly several new clouds we currently are not familiar with will emerge out of the blue.