What Does Cloud Web Hosting Mean?
What is cloud web hosting indeed? The word 'cloud' appears to be quite fashionable in today's IT, World Wide Web and hosting parlance. In spite of that, only a few in fact are aware of what cloud hosting is. Maybe it is a sensible idea to inform yourself about cloud web hosting services. To render a very lengthy story concise, we will firstly reveal to you what cloud hosting is not.
1. Cloud Web Hosting is Not Confined to a Remote Data Storage Only.
1. Delivering a remote file storage service, which involves one disk storage device for all users, does not transform any particular web hosting provider into a genuine cloud web hosting provider.
The cPanel hosting firms name the ability to offer remote disk storage services a cloud web hosting service. Up till now there is nothing bad about the cloud labeling, but... we are discussing website hosting services, not remote disk storage services for private or business needs. There's always one "but", isn't there? It's not enough to dub a shared hosting service, powered by a single-server hosting environment, just like cPanel, a "cloud web hosting" service. That's because the remaining components of the whole hosting platform must be working in exactly the same way - this does not relate solely to the remote data storage. The rest of the services entailed in the entire hosting process also must be remote, isolated and "clouded". And that's extremely difficult. Very few web hosting providers can really attain it.
2. It Involves Domain Names, Electronic Mail Accounts, Databases, FTPs, Control Panels, etc.
Cloud web hosting is not confined to a remote disk storage exclusively. We are talking about a web hosting solution, serving plenty of domains, websites, e-mailboxes, and so on, aren't we?
To name a web hosting service a "cloud web hosting" one demands a lot more than distributing simply remote file storage mounts (or probably servers). The e-mail server(s) must be dedicated only to the mail linked services. Executing nothing different than these particular assignments. There might be only one single or possibly an entire stack of email servers, based on the overall server load created. To have a genuine cloud web hosting solution, the remote database servers should be functioning as one, irrespective of their real amount. Carrying out nothing else. The same is valid for the clients' web hosting Control Panels, the FTP, and so on.
3. There are Cloud Domain Name Servers (DNSs) as well.
The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of an actual cloud web hosting distributor will support numerous datacenter facility sites on different continents.
Here's an example of a Domain Name Server of an actual cloud web hosting packages provider:
dns1.webserverbee.com
dns2.webserverbee.com
If such a DNS is offered by your web hosting supplier, it's not a sure thing that there is a cloud hosting platform in use, but you can definitely be certain when you notice a DNS like the one below:
dns658.hostgator.com
dns659.hostgator.com
that there isn't any cloud web hosting platform. This kind of DNS merely indicates that the web hosting environment in use is one-single-server based. Possibly it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-server hosting solution and has a 98+ percent market share. In cPanel's case, one physical machine tackles all hosting services (web, mail, DNS, databases, File Transfer Protocol, web hosting CP(s), web site files, etc.).
Remote File Storage - The Twisted Definition of Cloud Web Hosting.
So, a cloud web hosting service is not limited simply to a remote disk storage service, as plenty of web hosting companies wish it was. Unluckily for them, if that was the case, most of the file web hosting providers would have been categorized as cloud web hosting ones long ago! They are not referred to as such, as they plainly supply file hosting solutions, not cloud hosting services. The file web hosting platform appears really very plain, when compared to the hosting platform. The remote file storage platform is not a cloud web hosting platform. It cannot be, since it's merely one simple constituent of the whole cloud hosting platform. There's a lot more to be encountered in the cloud web hosting platform: the web hosting Control Panel cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the DNS cloud, the File Transfer Protocol cloud, the electronic mail cloud and... in the upcoming future, perchance a few brand new clouds we currently are not aware of will appear unexpectedly.
| Business | Professional | Enterprise | Startup |
| Unlimited storage | Unlimited storage | Unlimited storage | Unlimited storage |
| Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth |
| 5 websites hosted | Unlimited websites hosted | Unlimited websites hosted | 1 website hosted |
| 30-Day Free Trial | 30-Day Free Trial | 30-Day Free Trial | 30-Day Free Trial |
| $4.99 / month | $9.95 / month | $14.99 / month | $2.99 / month |