What Indeed is Cloud Hosting?
What is cloud hosting in reality? The word 'cloud' seems to be very modish in today's computing, Internet and web hosting parlance. Yet, only a select few in fact are familiar with what cloud hosting is. Maybe it is a good idea to educate yourself about cloud hosting services. To make a very lengthy tale brief, we will first tell you what cloud hosting is not.
1. Cloud Hosting is Not Restricted to a Remote File Storage Only.
1. Furnishing a remote data storage solution, which comprises one single file storage tool for all customers, does not turn any specific web hosting distributor into a genuine cloud hosting provider.
The cPanel hosting providers dub the ability to distribute remote disk storage services a cloud hosting solution. Until now there is nothing wrong with the cloud labeling, but... we are discussing website hosting solutions, not remote file storage services for private or business needs. There's invariably one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to name a shared web hosting solution, driven by a one-server hosting environment, exactly like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" solution. This is so because the remaining parts of the whole web hosting platform must be functioning in exactly the same way - this does not refer solely to the remote file storage. The other services entailed in the whole hosting process also have to be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's very problematical. Very few hosting vendors can really do it.
2. It Encompasses Domain Names, Email Mailboxes, Databases, File Transfer Protocols, Web Hosting CPs, and so on.
Cloud hosting is not restricted to a remote file storage solely. We are talking about a hosting solution, serving multiple domain names, web pages, mail accounts, and so on, are we not?
To call a hosting service a "cloud hosting" one needs a lot more than delivering only remote data storage mounts (or maybe servers). The electronic mail server(s) need to be dedicated solely to the mail related services. Performing nothing different than these concrete procedures. There might be only one or possibly an entire cluster of email servers, based on the total server load generated. To have a true cloud hosting service, the remote database servers should be working as one, regardless of their real number. Doing nothing different. The same goes for the customers' hosting CPs, the File Transfer Protocol, etc.
3. There are Cloud Domain Name Servers (DNSs) too.
The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of a genuine cloud hosting accounts provider will support multiple data center locations on different continents.
Here's an illustration of a Domain Name Server of an actual cloud hosting services provider:
dns1.www.kodohost.com
dns2.www.kodohost.com
If such a DNS is supplied by your hosting packages provider, it's not a sure thing that there is a cloud hosting environment in use, but you can absolutely be convinced when you observe a Domain Name Server like the one below:
dns658.hostgator.com
dns659.hostgator.com
that there isn't any cloud web hosting service. This type of Domain Name Server just exhibits that the web hosting platform in use is one-server based. Probably it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-server web hosting platform and maintains a 98+ percent market share. In cPanel's case, one single physical machine takes care of all hosting services (web, mail, DNS, databases, FTP, CP(s), web site files, and so on).
Remote File Storage - The Distorted Definition of Cloud Hosting.
So, a cloud hosting solution is not confined exclusively to a remote file storage solution, as a lot of hosting corporations wish it was. Unfortunately for them, if that was the case, the majority of the file hosting firms would have been referred to as cloud web hosting ones a long time ago! They are not classified as such, as they plainly furnish file hosting solutions, not cloud hosting solutions. The file web hosting platform is really quite plain, when compared to the web hosting platform. The remote data storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, because it's just one tiny segment of the whole cloud web hosting platform. There's a lot more to be found in the cloud web hosting platform: the CP cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the Domain Name Server cloud, the File Transfer Protocol cloud, the email cloud and... in the near future, maybe a bunch of brand new clouds we presently are not aware of will spring up out of nowhere.
| Standard | Enhanced | Ultimate | Premium |
| Unlimited storage | Unlimited storage | Unlimited storage | Unlimited storage |
| Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth |
| 1 website hosted | 5 websites hosted | Unlimited websites hosted | Unlimited websites hosted |
| 30-Day Free Trial | 30-Day Free Trial | 30-Day Free Trial | 30-Day Free Trial |
| $4.42 / month | $8.21 / month | $18.54 / month | $14.21 / month |