What Does Cloud Hosting Signify?

What is cloud hosting in reality? The word 'cloud' seems to be very fashionable in today's IT, Internet and hosting phraseology. Yet, only a select few actually can tell what cloud hosting is. Maybe it is a fine idea to inform yourself about cloud hosting services. To render a very lengthy tale short, we will firstly let you in on what cloud hosting is not.

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

1. Supplying a remote file storage service, which comprises one file storage tool for all users, does not turn any particular web hosting company into an actual cloud hosting solutions provider.

The cPanel hosting vendors call the ability to furnish remote disk storage solutions a cloud hosting service. So far there is nothing bad about the cloud designation, but... we are discussing hosting services, not remote file storage solutions for private or business needs. There's always one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to name a shared web hosting solution, based on a single-server web hosting environment, just like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" service. This is so because the other pieces of the whole web hosting platform must be working in exactly the same manner - this does not refer only to the remote file storage. The remaining services involved in the entire hosting process also need to be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's quite hard. A very scanty number of web hosting suppliers can really make it.

2. It Involves Domains, Mails, Databases, FTPs, Web Hosting CPs, and so on.

Cloud hosting is not confined to a remote file storage exclusively. We are talking about a web hosting service, serving a lot of domain names, sites, email addresses, and so on, right?

To name a hosting service a "cloud hosting" one demands a lot more than delivering just remote file storage mounts (or possibly physical servers). The email server(s) must be dedicated solely to the email associated services. Carrying out nothing else than these particular tasks. There might be only one or perhaps an entire bundle of email servers, based on the total load created. To have an authentic cloud hosting solution, the remote database servers should be operating as one, irrespective of their real quantity. Doing nothing different. The same goes for the customers' hosting CPs, the FTP, etc.

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

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

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

dns1.www.bluehost24.com

dns2.www.bluehost24.com

If such a Domain Name Server is provided by your hosting company, it's not a sure thing that there is a cloud hosting platform in use, but you can definitely be convinced when you discern a Domain Name Server such as the one beneath:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

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

Remote File Storage - The Warped Definition of Cloud Hosting.

So, a cloud hosting service is not confined simply to a remote file storage service, as many hosting corporations wish it was. Unluckily for them, if that was the case, most of the file web hosting providers would have been categorized as cloud web hosting ones a long time back! They are not classified as such, because they plainly furnish file hosting services, not cloud web hosting services. The file hosting platform is indeed quite plain, when compared to the hosting platform. The remote disk 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 web hosting platform: the hosting CP cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the DNS cloud, the FTP cloud, the e-mail cloud and... in the near future, possibly several brand new clouds we currently don't know about will come up unexpectedly.