What is Cloud Web Hosting?

What is cloud hosting in reality? The word 'cloud' appears to be very fashionable in today's IT, World Wide Web and hosting lingo. Yet, only a few actually can tell what cloud hosting is. Probably it is a fine idea to inform yourself about cloud hosting services. To make a very long story concise, we will first reveal to you what cloud hosting is not.

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

1. Offering a remote disk storage service, which comprises one file storage appliance for all customers, does not transform any specific web hosting vendor into a real cloud hosting company.

The cPanel web hosting companies call the ability to distribute remote disk storage services a cloud hosting solution. Until now there is nothing wrong with the cloud terminology, but... we are discussing hosting services, not remote disk storage solutions for private or corporate needs. There's constantly one "but", isn't there? It's not enough to call a shared hosting service, powered by a single-server hosting platform, precisely like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" solution. That's because the remaining parts of the whole hosting platform must be working in exactly the same manner - this does not relate solely to the remote disk storage. The other services entailed in the entire hosting process also need to be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's quite tough. A very meager number of hosting vendors can really make it.

2. It Entails Domain Names, E-mail Addresses, Databases, File Transfer Protocols, Control Panels, and so on.

Cloud hosting is not confined to a remote file storage exclusively. We are discussing a hosting service, serving multiple domain names, web portals, electronic mail aliases, and so on, aren't we?

To dub a hosting service a "cloud hosting" one needs a lot more than offering merely remote disk storage mounts (or possibly servers). The mail server(s) need to be dedicated solely to the e-mail connected services. Executing nothing different than these given procedures. There might be just one single or possibly an entire array of email servers, based on the total load generated. To have an actual cloud hosting service, the remote database servers should be operating as one, regardless of their real amount. Executing nothing different. The same goes for the clients' web hosting CPs, the File Transfer Protocol, etc.

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

The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of a genuine cloud hosting vendor will support numerous datacenter facility sites on different continents.

Here's an example of a DNS of a true cloud hosting services provider:

dns1.3000host.com

dns2.3000host.com

If such a DNS is provided by your web hosting vendor, it's not a guarantee that there is a cloud hosting environment in use, but you can definitely be confident when you spot a Domain Name Server like the one beneath:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud hosting service. This kind of Domain Name Server simply exhibits that the hosting environment in use is one-single-server based. Possibly it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-server hosting solution and has a market share of more than 98 percent. In cPanel's case, one single physical server copes with all web hosting services (web, email, DNS, databases, FTP, web hosting Control Panel(s), web files, etc.).

Remote File Storage - The Perverted Interpretation of Cloud Hosting.

So, a cloud hosting solution is not limited simply to a remote data storage solution, as plenty of web hosting corporations wish it was. Sadly for them, if that was the case, most of the file hosting providers would have been referred to as cloud hosting ones long ago! They are not classified as such, as they plainly furnish file web hosting services, not cloud hosting services. The file hosting platform is really quite plain, in comparison with the hosting platform. The remote file storage platform is not a cloud web hosting platform. It cannot be, because it's only one small part of the entire cloud hosting platform. There's a lot more to be found in the cloud hosting platform: the hosting CP cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the DNS cloud, the File Transfer Protocol cloud, the mail cloud and... in the not too distant future, perchance a number of new clouds we currently are not aware of will spring up unexpectedly.