What is Cloud Hosting?

What is cloud hosting actually? The term 'cloud' seems to be quite fashionable in today's information technology, World Wide Web and web hosting parlance. In spite of that, only a few in fact can say what cloud hosting is. Probably it is a clever idea to inform yourself about cloud hosting services. To render a very long story brief, we will firstly reveal to you what cloud hosting is not.

1. Cloud Hosting is Not Restricted to a Remote Data Storage Solely.

1. Supplying a remote file storage solution, which involves one file storage device for all users, does not turn any given hosting vendor into a genuine cloud hosting company.

The cPanel hosting companies call the ability to distribute remote disk storage services a cloud hosting service. Until now there is nothing wrong with the cloud designation, but... we are talking about website hosting services, not remote data storage solutions for private or corporate needs. There's invariably one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to dub a shared web hosting solution, driven by a one-single-server web hosting platform, precisely like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" solution. This is so because the remaining fractions of the whole hosting platform must be operating in exactly the same manner - this does not relate solely to the remote file storage. The remaining services entailed in the whole hosting procedure also must be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's very problematical. A very scanty number of hosting companies can truly accomplish it.

2. It Encompasses Domains, Mail Aliases, Databases, File Transfer Protocols, Control Panels, etc.

Cloud hosting is not confined to a remote file storage only. We are talking about a hosting service, serving lots of domains, web sites, mail addresses, and so on, right?

To dub a hosting service a "cloud hosting" one demands a lot more than furnishing plainly remote file storage mounts (or maybe physical servers). The e-mail server(s) must be devoted only to the e-mail connected services. Executing nothing different than these concrete procedures. There might be just one single or probably a whole pack of electronic mail servers, determined by the total load created. To have a true cloud hosting solution, the remote database servers should be working as one, irrespective of their real number. Carrying out nothing different. The same goes for the users' Control Panels, the FTP, and so on.

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

The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of a real cloud hosting firm will support numerous data center locations on multiple continents.

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

dns1.godyhost.com

dns2.godyhost.com

If such a Domain Name Server is offered by your web hosting provider, it's not a sure thing that there is a cloud hosting platform in use, but you can definitely be convinced when you spot a Domain Name Server such as the one below:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud web hosting service. This sort of DNS simply demonstrates that the web hosting platform in use is one-server based. Perchance it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-server hosting platform and has a 98+ percent market share. In cPanel's case, one physical machine takes care of all hosting services (web, e-mail, DNS, databases, File Transfer Protocol, hosting CP(s), website files, etc.).

Remote File Storage - The Twisted Interpretation of Cloud Hosting.

So, a cloud hosting service is not restricted solely to a remote file storage service, as plenty of hosting firms wish it was. Unluckily for them, if that was the case, the majority of the file web hosting corporations would have been classified as cloud web hosting ones a long time back! They are not classified as such, as they plainly offer file web hosting services, not cloud web hosting solutions. The file hosting platform looks really quite simple, in comparison with the web hosting platform. The remote data storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, since it's simply one tiny part of the entire cloud hosting platform. There's a lot more to be found in the cloud hosting platform: the Control Panel cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the DNS cloud, the FTP cloud, the e-mail cloud and... in the not too distant future, maybe a bunch of new clouds we currently are not acquainted with will come up out of the blue.