What Precisely is Cloud Hosting?
What is cloud hosting really? The term 'cloud' seems to be quite modern in today's information technology, Internet and web hosting terminology. However, just a select few in fact can say what cloud hosting is. Possibly it is a sensible idea to educate yourself about cloud hosting services. To make a very lengthy story succinct, we will firstly inform you about what cloud hosting is not.
1. Cloud Hosting is Not Restricted to a Remote File Storage Solely.
1. Supplying a remote disk storage service, which involves one single data storage appliance for all clients, does not transform any given hosting service provider into a genuine cloud hosting vendor.
The cPanel hosting firms call the ability to deliver remote file storage services a cloud hosting solution. Until now there is nothing bad about the cloud terminology, but... we are talking about web hosting services, not remote disk storage solutions for private or corporate purposes. There's invariably one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to dub a shared hosting solution, based on a one-server web hosting environment, just like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" solution. That's because the other constituents 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 rest of the services involved in the whole hosting procedure also have to be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's extremely problematical. A very small number of web hosting suppliers can actually achieve it.
2. It Entails Domain Names, E-mails, Databases, File Transfer Protocols, Hosting Control Panels, and so on.
Cloud hosting is not limited to a remote data storage only. We are discussing a web hosting service, serving many domain names, online portals, e-mail box accounts, and so on, are we not?
To call a hosting service a "cloud hosting" one needs a lot more than furnishing simply remote disk storage mounts (or perhaps physical servers). The mail server(s) must be dedicated exclusively to the email associated services. Performing nothing different than these specific procedures. There might be only one or perchance a whole assortment of electronic mail servers, depending on the total load generated. To have an authentic cloud hosting service, the remote database servers should be performing as one, irrespective of their actual amount. Carrying out nothing else. The same is valid for the clients' hosting Control Panels, the File Transfer Protocol, and so on.
3. There are Cloud Domain Servers (DNSs) too.
The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of an authentic cloud hosting distributor will support numerous datacenter sites on multiple continents.
Here's an illustration of a DNS of an authentic cloud hosting company:
dns1.gobobby.net
dns2.gobobby.net
If such a DNS is provided by your web hosting provider, it's not a sure thing that there is a cloud web hosting platform in use, but you can definitely be convinced when you spot a DNS like the one below:
dns658.hostgator.com
dns659.hostgator.com
that there isn't any cloud web hosting platform. This type of DNS merely displays that the hosting platform in use is one-server based. Probably it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-single-server hosting platform and maintains a 98+ percent market share. In cPanel's case, a single physical machine tackles all hosting services (web, email, DNS, databases, File Transfer Protocol, CP(s), web site files, and so on).
Remote File Storage - The Warped Interpretation of Cloud Hosting.
So, a cloud hosting solution is not limited only to a remote data storage solution, as many web hosting vendors wish it was. Unfortunately for them, if that was the case, most of the file web hosting service providers would have been categorized as cloud hosting ones a long time ago! They are not categorized as such, as they plainly supply file web hosting solutions, not cloud hosting services. The file hosting platform appears really quite simple, when compared to the web hosting platform. The remote file storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, because it's only one small fragment of the whole cloud web hosting platform. There's a lot more to be found in the cloud web hosting platform: the CP cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the Domain Name Server cloud, the File Transfer Protocol cloud, the mail cloud and... in the not too distant future, perchance a number of new clouds we currently are not informed about will show up unexpectedly.
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