What is Cloud Hosting?

What is cloud hosting indeed? The word 'cloud' seems to be quite modern in today's information technology, World Wide Web and hosting lingo. However, only a few in fact can tell what cloud hosting is. Perchance it is a fine idea to educate yourself about cloud hosting services. To render a very lengthy tale brief, we will first reveal to you what cloud hosting is not.

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

1. Offering a remote data storage solution, which involves one file storage device for all clients, does not convert any particular web hosting provider into a genuine cloud hosting services provider.

The cPanel hosting suppliers call the ability to supply remote disk storage solutions a cloud hosting service. Up till now there is nothing wrong with the cloud labeling, but... we are talking about website hosting services, not remote file storage solutions for personal or business purposes. There's constantly one "but", isn't there? It's not enough to dub a shared hosting solution, based on a single-server hosting environment, just like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" service. This is so because the other components of the whole hosting platform must be functioning in exactly the same manner - this does not refer solely to the remote data storage. The other services entailed in the entire hosting procedure also have to be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's quite hard. A very meager number of hosting companies can really make it.

2. It Includes Domains, Email Boxes, Databases, FTPs, Control Panels, etc.

Cloud hosting is not limited to a remote disk storage exclusively. We are talking about a hosting solution, serving countless domains, online portals, email accounts, etc., right?

To dub a hosting service a "cloud hosting" one calls for a lot more than supplying just remote disk storage mounts (or maybe physical servers). The mail server(s) need to be devoted only to the mail connected services. Doing nothing different than these specific tasks. There might be just one or perhaps an entire array of e-mail servers, based on the total load produced. To have an actual cloud hosting solution, the remote database servers should be performing as one, regardless of their real number. Doing nothing different. The same is valid for the clients' web hosting CPs, the File Transfer Protocol, etc.

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

The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of an actual cloud hosting solutions provider will support numerous data center sites on multiple continents.

Here's an illustration of a DNS of a genuine cloud hosting solutions provider:

dns1.sell-buy.net

dns2.sell-buy.net

If such a Domain Name Server is furnished by your hosting company, it's not a guarantee that there is a cloud web hosting environment in use, but you can definitely be sure when you notice a Domain Name Server such as the one below:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud hosting service. This kind of DNS only displays that the web hosting platform in use is one-single-server based. Probably it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-server web hosting solution and maintains a market share of more than 98 percent. In cPanel's case, one physical server takes care of all web hosting services (web, mail, DNS, databases, File Transfer Protocol, web hosting Control Panel(s), website files, etc.).

Remote File Storage - The Distorted Explanation of Cloud Hosting.

So, a cloud hosting service is not confined simply to a remote file storage solution, as many web hosting companies wish it was. Unluckily for them, if that was the case, most of the file hosting suppliers would have been referred to as cloud hosting ones a long time ago! They are not categorized as such, since they merely distribute file web hosting services, not cloud hosting solutions. The file web hosting platform looks indeed very simple, when compared to the web hosting platform. The remote data storage platform is not a cloud web hosting platform. It cannot be, as it's only one tiny 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 Domain Name Server cloud, the File Transfer Protocol cloud, the mail cloud and... in the not too distant future, maybe a bunch of brand new clouds we currently are not familiar with will appear unexpectedly.