What is Cloud Hosting?

What is cloud hosting actually? The term 'cloud' appears to be very fashionable in today's information technology, World Wide Web and web hosting terms. However, only a few actually can tell what cloud hosting is. Perhaps it is a fine idea to educate yourself about cloud hosting services. To render a very lengthy tale succinct, we will firstly disclose to you what cloud hosting is not.

1. Cloud Hosting is Not Confined to a Remote Disk Storage Exclusively.

1. Offering a remote disk storage service, which involves one single disk storage device for all clients, does not turn any particular hosting provider into an actual cloud hosting packages provider.

The cPanel hosting firms call the ability to provide remote data storage solutions a cloud hosting solution. Up to now there is nothing wrong with the cloud designation, but... we are discussing website hosting services, not remote disk storage solutions for private or corporate needs. There's invariably one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to dub a shared hosting solution, driven by a single-server web hosting platform, precisely like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" service. That's because the remaining constituents of the entire web hosting platform must be working in precisely the same manner - this does not apply solely to the remote file storage. The rest of the services involved in the entire hosting process also must be remote, isolated and "clouded". And that's quite problematical. Very few hosting distributors can actually achieve it.

2. It Includes Domains, E-mail Boxes, Databases, File Transfer Protocols, Web Hosting CPs, etc.

Cloud hosting is not limited to a remote disk storage exclusively. We are talking about a web hosting solution, serving lots of domains, websites, mail addresses, etc., are we not?

To dub a hosting service a "cloud hosting" one needs a lot more than supplying plainly remote file storage mounts (or perchance servers). The electronic mail server(s) have to be devoted only to the e-mail related services. Doing nothing different than these particular procedures. There might be only one or perchance a whole group of mail servers, based on the total server load produced. To have a genuine cloud hosting service, the remote database servers should be working as one, irrespective of their actual quantity. Performing nothing different. The same is valid for the customers' web hosting 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 plans provider will support multiple datacenter sites on multiple continents.

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

dns1.laredohost.com

dns2.laredohost.com

If such a DNS is supplied by your hosting services provider, it's not a guarantee that there is a cloud web hosting environment in use, but you can definitely be confident when you perceive a DNS like the one below:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud web hosting platform. This type of Domain Name Server simply reveals that the web hosting platform in use is one-single-server based. Perhaps it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-single-server hosting solution and has a market share of more than ninety eight percent. In cPanel's case, one physical server handles all web hosting services (web, e-mail, DNS, databases, FTP, hosting Control Panel(s), website files, etc.).

Remote File Storage - The Warped Characterization of Cloud Hosting.

So, a cloud hosting solution is not limited solely to a remote file storage solution, as numerous hosting providers wish it was. Unluckily for them, if that was the case, most of the file hosting service providers would have been classified as cloud web hosting ones a long time back! They are not classified as such, as they plainly furnish file web hosting solutions, not cloud hosting services. The file web hosting platform appears indeed quite plain, in comparison with the hosting platform. The remote file storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, because it's simply one simple constituent of the whole cloud web hosting platform. There's a lot more to be found in the cloud web hosting platform: the Control Panel cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the DNS cloud, the FTP cloud, the email cloud and... in the upcoming future, probably several new clouds we currently are not acquainted with will show up out of nowhere.