What Does Cloud Website Hosting Mean?

What is cloud web hosting actually? The term 'cloud' appears to be quite trendy in today's IT, World Wide Web and hosting phraseology. Nevertheless, just a few actually know what cloud hosting is. Maybe it is a sensible idea to educate yourself about cloud web hosting services. To make a quite long story succinct, we will first enlighten you on what cloud hosting is not.

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

1. Furnishing a remote data storage solution, which comprises one single file storage appliance for all clients, does not transform any specific web hosting distributor into a real cloud web hosting distributor.

The cPanel hosting companies call the ability to offer remote file storage solutions a cloud web hosting solution. So far there is nothing wrong with the cloud designation, but... we are talking about website hosting services, not remote disk storage solutions for individual or corporate needs. There's invariably one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to call a shared hosting service, powered by a one-server web hosting platform, just like cPanel, a "cloud web hosting" service. This is so because the other fractions of the whole hosting platform must be functioning in exactly the same manner - this does not apply only to the remote disk storage. The other services entailed in the entire hosting process also have to be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's extremely hard. A very small number of web hosting service providers can really attain it.

2. It Encompasses Domains, E-mail Boxes, Databases, FTPs, CPs, etc.

Cloud web hosting is not limited to a remote disk storage solely. We are talking about a hosting service, serving numerous domains, websites, email mailboxes, etc., right?

To name a web hosting service a "cloud web hosting" one demands a lot more than providing plainly remote disk storage mounts (or possibly physical servers). The mail server(s) have to be devoted solely to the e-mail connected services. Carrying out nothing else than these given assignments. There might be just one single or perhaps a whole bundle of mail servers, based on the overall server load produced. To have a true cloud web hosting solution, the remote database servers should be functioning as one, regardless of their real amount. Doing nothing else. The same is valid for the users' Control Panels, the File Transfer Protocol, etc.

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

The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of a true cloud web hosting company will support multiple server farm sites on different continents.

Here's an illustration of a DNS of an actual cloud web hosting plans provider:

dns1.www.emaxhost.com

dns2.www.emaxhost.com

If such a DNS is furnished by your hosting company, it's not a sure thing that there is a cloud hosting platform in use, but you can absolutely be sure when you observe a Domain Name Server such as the one beneath:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud web hosting platform. This kind of Domain Name Server just shows that the web hosting environment in use is one-single-server based. Probably it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-server web hosting platform and holds a market share of more than 98 percent. In cPanel's case, one physical machine handles all web hosting services (web, email, DNS, databases, FTP, Control Panel(s), web site files, etc.).

Remote File Storage - The Warped Characterization of Cloud Web Hosting.

So, a cloud web hosting service is not confined just to a remote file storage solution, as multiple hosting vendors wish it was. Unluckily for them, if that was the case, the majority of the file hosting service providers would have been classified as cloud web hosting ones a long time back! They are not referred to as such, because they merely furnish file web hosting services, not cloud hosting services. The file web hosting platform appears really very plain, when compared to the web hosting platform. The remote disk storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, because it's merely one small fraction of the entire cloud web hosting platform. There's plenty more to be discovered in the cloud web hosting platform: the hosting CP cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the Domain Name Server cloud, the FTP cloud, the electronic mail cloud and... in the near future, possibly several new clouds we presently are not acquainted with will surface out of the blue.