What Actually is Cloud Hosting?

What is cloud web hosting indeed? The term 'cloud' appears to be quite modern in today's information technology, World Wide Web and hosting lingo. In spite of that, just a select few really are informed about what cloud hosting is. Perhaps it is a clever idea to inform yourself about cloud web hosting services. To render a very long tale brief, we will firstly acquaint you with what cloud hosting is not.

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

1. Providing a remote data storage solution, which comprises one single disk storage appliance for all clients, does not convert any given hosting vendor into a real cloud web hosting distributor.

The cPanel hosting providers dub the ability to provide remote file storage services a cloud web hosting solution. So far there is nothing bad about the cloud designation, but... we are talking about web hosting services, not remote disk storage services for private or business needs. There's invariably one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to name a shared web hosting solution, based on a single-server web hosting platform, exactly like cPanel, a "cloud web hosting" service. That's because the remaining fractions of the whole web hosting platform must be functioning in precisely the same manner - this does not relate only to the remote file storage. The rest of the services entailed in the whole web hosting process also have to be remote, isolated and "clouded". And that's really difficult. A very small number of web hosting distributors can really attain it.

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

Cloud web hosting is not restricted to a remote data storage only. We are talking about a hosting service, serving a lot of domains, web pages, mails, and so on, aren't we?

To dub a hosting service a "cloud web hosting" one demands a lot more than delivering plainly remote disk storage mounts (or probably physical servers). The email server(s) need to be devoted only to the electronic mail associated services. Doing nothing different than these given tasks. There might be just one or perchance an entire group of email servers, based on the total server load generated. To have a genuine cloud web hosting service, the remote database servers should be operating as one, irrespective of their actual amount. Performing nothing else. The same is valid for the users' Control Panels, the FTP, and so on.

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

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

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

dns1.www.iwebclouds.com

dns2.www.iwebclouds.com

If such a Domain Name Server is supplied by your web hosting supplier, it's not a guarantee that there is a cloud web hosting environment in use, but you can absolutely be convinced when you discern a Domain Name Server like the one below:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud hosting service. This type of Domain Name Server simply shows that the web hosting environment in use is one-single-server based. Possibly it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-server web hosting platform and has a market share of more than 98 percent. In cPanel's case, one single physical machine handles all web hosting services (web, email, DNS, databases, FTP, CP(s), web site files, and so on).

Remote File Storage - The Distorted Description of Cloud Web Hosting.

So, a cloud web hosting solution is not confined only to a remote data storage service, as plenty of web hosting corporations wish it was. Unluckily for them, if that was the case, the majority of the file hosting distributors would have been categorized as cloud web hosting ones a long time ago! They are not classified as such, because they merely provide file web hosting solutions, not cloud hosting solutions. The file web hosting platform appears indeed very plain, in comparison with the hosting platform. The remote data storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, because it's only one simple fragment 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 File Transfer Protocol cloud, the email cloud and... in the not too distant future, perhaps a bunch of brand new clouds we currently are not informed about will turn up out of nowhere.