What Indeed is Cloud Web Hosting?

What is cloud website hosting in fact? The term 'cloud' seems to be quite modish in today's computing, Internet and hosting jargon. Yet, only a few in fact can say what cloud hosting is. Possibly it is a good idea to inform yourself about cloud website hosting services. To render a quite lengthy tale brief, we will first disclose to you what cloud hosting is not.

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

1. Providing a remote disk storage solution, which comprises one single file storage appliance for all clients, does not transform any specific web hosting company into an actual cloud website hosting firm.

The cPanel web hosting distributors call the ability to deliver remote data storage services a cloud website hosting solution. So far there is nothing bad about the cloud labeling, but... we are talking about website hosting services, not remote disk storage solutions for personal or business needs. There's always one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to call a shared hosting solution, powered by a one-single-server web hosting platform, just like cPanel, a "cloud website hosting" service. That's because the remaining constituents of the entire web hosting platform must be working in exactly the same manner - this does not refer solely to the remote file storage. The rest of the services entailed in the whole hosting process also must be remote, isolated and "clouded". And that's quite problematical. Very few service providers can truly achieve it.

2. It Entails Domains, Electronic Mail Aliases, Databases, FTPs, Web Hosting CPs, etc.

Cloud website hosting is not limited to a remote data storage only. We are talking about a hosting service, serving a lot of domain names, websites, electronic mail accounts, etc., aren't we?

To dub a web hosting service a "cloud website hosting" one demands a lot more than delivering merely remote disk storage mounts (or perhaps servers). The email server(s) have to be dedicated solely to the email connected services. Carrying out nothing else than these concrete tasks. There might be just one single or maybe a whole cluster of e-mail servers, based on the total load produced. To have a true cloud website hosting service, the remote database servers should be functioning as one, irrespective of their real quantity. Executing nothing different. The same is valid for the clients' web hosting Control Panels, the FTP, and so on.

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

The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of an actual cloud website hosting firm will support multiple server farm locations on multiple continents.

Here's an illustration of a DNS of an authentic cloud website hosting packages provider:

dns1.www.ezedomain.com

dns2.www.ezedomain.com

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

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud web hosting service. This sort of Domain Name Server plainly manifests that the web hosting platform in use is one-server based. Maybe 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 is responsible for all hosting services (web, e-mail, DNS, databases, FTP, hosting CP(s), web files, etc.).

Remote File Storage - The Warped Definition of Cloud Website Hosting.

So, a cloud website hosting service is not confined only to a remote file storage service, as plenty of hosting vendors wish it was. Unluckily for them, if that was the case, most of the file web hosting providers would have been classified as cloud hosting ones a long time ago! They are not referred to as such, because they plainly supply file hosting solutions, not cloud hosting solutions. The file hosting platform appears indeed very simple, when compared to the web hosting platform. The remote file storage platform is not a cloud web hosting platform. It cannot be, as it's merely one small part of the entire cloud hosting platform. There's a lot more to be encountered in the cloud hosting platform: the CP cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the DNS cloud, the FTP cloud, the e-mail cloud and... in the upcoming future, possibly several brand new clouds we currently are not familiar with will spring up unexpectedly.