What Indeed is Cloud Web Hosting?

What is cloud website hosting indeed? The word 'cloud' appears to be quite fashionable in today's computing, Internet and hosting phraseology. However, only a select few really can tell what cloud hosting is. Maybe it is a clever idea to educate yourself about cloud website hosting services. To make a very long story succinct, we will firstly disclose to you what cloud hosting is not.

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

1. Offering a remote disk storage service, which comprises one data storage device for all customers, does not transform any particular web hosting service provider into an actual cloud website hosting accounts provider.

The cPanel web hosting distributors name the ability to deliver remote disk storage services a cloud website hosting solution. Up till now there is nothing bad about the cloud labeling, but... we are talking about website hosting solutions, not remote data storage solutions for personal or corporate purposes. There's always one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to call a shared hosting solution, powered by a one-server hosting platform, exactly like cPanel, a "cloud website hosting" service. This is so because the remaining parts of the entire hosting platform must be working in precisely the same way - this does not refer only to the remote data storage. The other services involved in the whole web hosting process also must be remote, isolated and "clouded". And that's really problematical. A very meager number of hosting distributors can truly attain it.

2. It Includes Domain Names, E-mails, Databases, File Transfer Protocols, Hosting Control Panels, and so on.

Cloud website hosting is not restricted to a remote disk storage exclusively. We are talking about a web hosting service, serving multiple domains, web portals, email mailboxes, and so on, right?

To dub a web hosting service a "cloud website hosting" one takes a lot more than supplying merely remote disk storage mounts (or maybe physical servers). The mail server(s) need to be devoted exclusively to the electronic mail connected services. Carrying out nothing else than these particular tasks. There might be only one single or possibly a whole set of email servers, depending on the overall load generated. To have a real cloud website hosting solution, the remote database servers should be performing as one, irrespective of their actual quantity. Performing nothing else. The same goes for the clients' hosting CPs, the File Transfer Protocol, etc.

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

The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of an authentic cloud website hosting company will support numerous server farm facility sites on different continents.

Here's an illustration of a Domain Name Server of a genuine cloud website hosting vendor:

dns1.globalezwebhosting.com

dns2.globalezwebhosting.com

If such a Domain Name Server is offered by your hosting provider, it's not a guarantee that there is a cloud hosting environment in use, but you can definitely be sure when you perceive a DNS such as the one underneath:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud web hosting platform. This kind of DNS only indicates that the hosting platform in use is one-single-server based. Maybe it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-single-server hosting platform and has a market share of more than 98%. In cPanel's case, a single physical server handles all web hosting services (web, mail, DNS, databases, File Transfer Protocol, hosting Control Panel(s), web site files, and so on).

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

So, a cloud website hosting solution is not confined only to a remote data storage service, as a lot of hosting distributors wish it was. Sadly for them, if that was the case, most of the file web hosting suppliers would have been classified as cloud hosting ones a long time ago! They are not categorized as such, since they simply supply file web hosting solutions, not cloud hosting services. The file hosting platform appears really very plain, in comparison with the hosting platform. The remote file storage platform is not a cloud web hosting platform. It cannot be, since it's merely one small component of the whole cloud hosting platform. There's a lot more to be encountered in the cloud web hosting platform: the hosting Control Panel cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the DNS cloud, the FTP cloud, the email cloud and... in the upcoming future, possibly several new clouds we currently are not acquainted with will emerge out of nowhere.