Cloud Hosting Definition

What is cloud hosting indeed? The term 'cloud' seems to be quite modish in today's information technology, Internet and hosting terminology. Yet, just a select few actually can say what cloud hosting is. Perchance it is a good idea to educate yourself about cloud hosting services. To render a very lengthy tale concise, we will first describe to you what cloud hosting is not.

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

1. Supplying a remote disk storage service, which involves one single file storage device for all clients, does not transform any given hosting corporation into an actual cloud hosting provider.

The cPanel web hosting companies name the ability to supply remote disk storage services a cloud hosting solution. Until now there is nothing bad about the cloud classification, but... we are discussing website hosting solutions, not remote file storage solutions for individual or corporate purposes. There's always one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to call a shared hosting solution, based on a one-single-server web hosting platform, exactly like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" service. That's because the other parts of the entire web hosting platform must be functioning in exactly the same way - this does not refer solely to the remote disk storage. The remaining services involved in the entire web hosting procedure also need to be remote, isolated and "clouded". And that's extremely problematical. A very small number of web hosting service providers can truly accomplish it.

2. It Encompasses Domains, Electronic Mail Addresses, Databases, File Transfer Protocols, CPs, etc.

Cloud hosting is not confined to a remote file storage only. We are discussing a hosting solution, serving multiple domain names, websites, mails, etc., right?

To dub a hosting service a "cloud hosting" one demands a lot more than delivering plainly remote file storage mounts (or maybe physical servers). The mail server(s) have to be devoted just to the mail associated services. Executing nothing else than these given procedures. There might be just one single or maybe an entire cluster of e-mail servers, based on the overall load generated. To have a real cloud hosting service, the remote database servers should be functioning as one, irrespective of their actual quantity. Carrying out nothing else. The same goes for the users' Control Panels, the FTP, and so on.

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

The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of a true cloud hosting accounts provider will support multiple data center facility sites on different continents.

Here's an instance of a DNS of an actual cloud hosting distributor:

dns1.advantagehostingsolutions.com

dns2.advantagehostingsolutions.com

If such a DNS is supplied by your hosting provider, it's not a guarantee that there is a cloud hosting platform in use, but you can definitely be sure when you notice a DNS like the one underneath:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud web hosting platform. This type of DNS just shows that the hosting platform in use is one-single-server based. Possibly it's cPanel. cPanel is a single-server hosting platform and holds a market share of more than 98 percent. In cPanel's case, a single physical machine deals with all hosting services (web, electronic 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 solution is not limited just to a remote data storage solution, as many service providers wish it was. Unluckily for them, if that was the case, most of the file web hosting providers would have been referred to as cloud web hosting ones a long time back! They are not categorized as such, because they merely provide file web hosting solutions, not cloud hosting solutions. The file hosting platform appears indeed very simple, in comparison with the web hosting platform. The remote file storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, since it's merely one small component of the whole cloud web hosting platform. There's plenty more to be found in the cloud hosting platform: the web hosting CP cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the Domain Name Server cloud, the FTP cloud, the electronic mail cloud and... in the not too distant future, perhaps a number of new clouds we presently are not aware of will turn up out of nowhere.