What Precisely is Cloud Web Hosting?

What is cloud web hosting really? The word 'cloud' seems to be very fashionable in today's computing, Internet and web hosting parlance. In spite of that, only a few actually are familiar with what cloud hosting is. Possibly it is a smart idea to inform yourself about cloud web hosting services. To render a very lengthy story short, we will first disclose to you what cloud hosting is not.

1. Cloud Web Hosting is Not Limited to a Remote File Storage Only.

1. Supplying a remote file storage service, which comprises one single data storage appliance for all users, does not turn any particular provider into an actual cloud web hosting supplier.

The cPanel web hosting suppliers dub the ability to furnish remote file storage services a cloud web hosting solution. Until now there is nothing bad about the cloud classification, but... we are talking about web hosting services, not remote file storage services for personal or business needs. There's constantly one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to name a shared hosting service, based on a one-single-server hosting platform, just like cPanel, a "cloud web hosting" service. That's because the remaining pieces of the entire hosting platform must be working in exactly the same manner - this does not apply solely to the remote disk storage. The other services involved in the entire hosting process also need to be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's quite tough. Very few web hosting vendors can truly accomplish it.

2. It Includes Domains, Electronic Mail Addresses, Databases, File Transfer Protocols, Web Hosting CPs, and so on.

Cloud web hosting is not limited to a remote disk storage exclusively. We are discussing a web hosting solution, serving many domain names, online portals, mailbox aliases, etc., are we not?

To call a web hosting service a "cloud web hosting" one needs a lot more than delivering just remote disk storage mounts (or possibly servers). The e-mail server(s) need to be devoted just to the electronic mail related services. Doing nothing else than these particular tasks. There might be only one or perchance a whole bundle of mail servers, determined by the overall server load created. To have an authentic cloud web hosting service, the remote database servers should be operating as one, irrespective of their real quantity. Doing nothing different. The same goes for the customers' Control Panels, the File Transfer Protocol, and so on.

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

The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of an authentic cloud web hosting company will support numerous server farm facility locations on multiple continents.

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

dns1.socialstream-me.com

dns2.socialstream-me.com

If such a DNS is supplied by your hosting distributor, it's not a guarantee that there is a cloud web hosting environment in use, but you can definitely be convinced when you perceive a DNS such as the one beneath:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud web hosting platform. This kind of DNS simply reveals that the hosting platform in use is one-server based. Probably it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-server web hosting solution and maintains a market share of more than 98%. In cPanel's case, one server handles all hosting services (web, electronic mail, DNS, databases, FTP, hosting CP(s), web site files, etc.).

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

So, a cloud web hosting service is not confined just to a remote disk storage solution, as a lot of hosting corporations wish it was. Unfortunately for them, if that was the case, the majority of the file web hosting firms would have been referred to as cloud hosting ones a long time ago! They are not categorized as such, because they merely furnish file hosting services, not cloud hosting services. The file hosting platform seems really very plain, when compared to the web hosting platform. The remote file storage platform is not a cloud web hosting platform. It cannot be, since it's only one small segment of the entire cloud web hosting platform. There's plenty more to be discovered in the cloud hosting platform: the hosting Control Panel cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the DNS cloud, the FTP cloud, the electronic mail cloud and... in the upcoming future, maybe a number of brand new clouds we currently are not familiar with will turn up out of the blue.