Cloud Hosting Explained

What is cloud hosting really? The term 'cloud' seems to be quite trendy in today's IT, World Wide Web and hosting terminology. Nevertheless, only a select few in fact are familiar with what cloud hosting is. Perhaps it is a good idea to inform yourself about cloud hosting services. To render a quite lengthy story succinct, we will first disclose to you what cloud hosting is not.

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

1. Delivering a remote data storage service, which involves one file storage device for all customers, does not turn any specific web hosting corporation into a real cloud hosting services provider.

The cPanel hosting providers name the ability to provide remote file storage solutions a cloud hosting service. Up to now there is nothing wrong with the cloud labeling, but... we are talking about website hosting solutions, not remote file storage services for individual or corporate purposes. There's constantly one "but", isn't there? It's not enough to name a shared hosting service, powered by a one-single-server hosting platform, exactly like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" solution. This is so because the other fractions of the entire hosting platform must be functioning in exactly the same manner - this does not apply solely to the remote data storage. The remaining services involved in the whole hosting procedure also need to be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's really problematical. A very scanty number of web hosting service providers can actually make it.

2. It Entails Domain Names, Email Mailbox Accounts, Databases, File Transfer Protocols, Web Hosting Control Panels, and so on.

Cloud hosting is not limited to a remote file storage solely. We are talking about a hosting solution, serving countless domains, web pages, email addresses, etc., right?

To name a hosting service a "cloud hosting" one needs a lot more than delivering solely remote disk storage mounts (or perchance physical servers). The mail server(s) have to be dedicated only to the email associated services. Executing nothing different than these specific procedures. There might be just one single or maybe a whole collection of e-mail servers, based on the overall server load produced. To have a genuine cloud hosting solution, the remote database servers should be functioning as one, regardless of their actual quantity. Performing nothing different. The same is valid for the users' Control Panels, the FTP, and so on.

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

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

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

dns1.supernovahost.net

dns2.supernovahost.net

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

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud hosting platform. This sort of Domain Name Server merely demonstrates that the hosting platform in use is one-single-server based. Probably it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-single-server web hosting platform and has a 98+ percent market share. In cPanel's case, one single physical machine deals with all hosting services (web, e-mail, DNS, databases, File Transfer Protocol, hosting Control Panel(s), website files, and so on).

Remote File Storage - The Perverted Characterization of Cloud Hosting.

So, a cloud hosting solution is not confined just to a remote file storage solution, as many web hosting vendors wish it was. Unluckily for them, if that was the case, the majority of the file service providers would have been categorized as cloud web hosting ones a long time back! They are not referred to as such, since they plainly provide file hosting solutions, not cloud hosting solutions. The file hosting platform is really very plain, when compared to the hosting platform. The remote file storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, since it's merely one simple component of the whole cloud web hosting platform. There's a lot more to be encountered in the cloud hosting platform: the hosting CP cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the DNS cloud, the File Transfer Protocol cloud, the electronic mail cloud and... in the upcoming future, perhaps a bunch of new clouds we currently don't know about will emerge unexpectedly.