What Precisely is Cloud Hosting?

What is cloud hosting in fact? The word 'cloud' seems to be quite modish in today's IT, World Wide Web and web hosting terminology. Yet, only a select few actually are aware of what cloud hosting is. Probably it is a good idea to inform yourself about cloud hosting services. To render a very lengthy story succinct, we will firstly enlighten you on what cloud hosting is not.

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

1. Offering a remote file storage service, which involves one single file storage appliance for all customers, does not convert any specific web hosting corporation into an actual cloud hosting services provider.

The cPanel hosting suppliers call the ability to furnish remote data storage services a cloud hosting solution. Up till now there is nothing bad about the cloud labeling, but... we are discussing hosting services, not remote data storage services for individual or corporate needs. There's always one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to call a shared hosting service, driven by a single-server hosting platform, precisely like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" service. That's because the remaining components of the entire hosting platform must be functioning in precisely the same manner - this does not refer only to the remote file storage. The remaining services involved in the whole web hosting process also have to be remote, isolated and "clouded". And that's really hard. A very small number of web hosting service providers can truly accomplish it.

2. It Involves Domains, Email Mailboxes, Databases, FTPs, Hosting Control Panels, etc.

Cloud hosting is not limited to a remote disk storage only. We are talking about a web hosting solution, serving a lot of domain names, web pages, email addresses, and so on, aren't we?

To name a hosting service a "cloud hosting" one takes a lot more than providing solely remote data storage mounts (or possibly physical servers). The email server(s) need to be dedicated solely to the e-mail associated services. Performing nothing different than these given procedures. There might be only one single or maybe a whole stack of e-mail servers, determined by the total server load created. To have a true cloud hosting solution, the remote database servers should be performing as one, regardless of their real quantity. Doing nothing else. The same is valid for the customers' web hosting CPs, the FTP, and so on.

3. There are Cloud Domain Servers (DNSs) too.

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

Here's an instance of a DNS of a true cloud hosting provider:

dns1.host4up.com

dns2.host4up.com

If such a Domain Name Server is provided by your hosting plans provider, it's not a sure thing that there is a cloud web hosting environment in use, but you can definitely be convinced when you observe a DNS such as the one below:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud hosting platform. This sort of DNS plainly exhibits that the web hosting platform in use is one-single-server based. Probably it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-server hosting platform and has a market share of more than 98%. In cPanel's case, one single server copes with all hosting services (web, email, DNS, databases, FTP, CP(s), web files, etc.).

Remote File Storage - The Twisted Interpretation of Cloud Hosting.

So, a cloud hosting service is not confined only to a remote disk storage service, as plenty of web hosting vendors 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 back! They are not categorized as such, since they merely offer file hosting solutions, not cloud hosting services. The file hosting platform appears indeed quite simple, when compared to the web hosting platform. The remote disk storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, because it's only one tiny part of the whole cloud web hosting platform. There's a lot more to be encountered in the cloud web hosting platform: the Control Panel cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the DNS cloud, the FTP cloud, the mail cloud and... in the foreseeable future, maybe a couple of new clouds we currently are not informed about will surface out of the blue.