What is Cloud Hosting | Pro and Cons of Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting is the web hosting solution for your website where the cloud server assists in spreading your web data over multiple servers that are interconnected and spread across a huge geographical area.
How does cloud hosting work?
Cloud hosting is the newest concept of web hosting where websites get access to cloud server resources. Unlike regular web hosting services, the web solutions are not stationed in a single sever.
There is a network of physical and virtual cloud sever which are interconnected. This network of servers usually hosts your website application to ensure higher scalability and flexibility.
This type of hosting solution uses the computing potential of a wide number of machines, making your website potential more vast than it would get with the traditional form of web hosting. You get access to all the services these machines have to offer.
The power and control a website enjoys with these networks of servers make the new hosting concept more interesting for us.
Advantages and disadvantages
Before you make up your mind about switching to the newest form of web hosting, let’s see what the pros and cons of using it are-
Pros:
- Scalability: The biggest advantage of choosing the interconnected servers is the scalability ease. Hosting your website on these servers lets your infrastructure encircle multiple servers and gain additional capabilities. With enhanced scalability, now, you can deal with an unexpected spike in your web traffic.
- Enhanced performance: Needless to say, when you have multiple servers hosting your website, apart from high scalability, your website delivers enhanced performance. Now you can balance your load time ideally with your increased web traffic.
- Cost-effectiveness: Cloud hosting irradicates all the needs for its customers to purchase, house, or even maintain their hardware. The ease of scaling services indicates that you pay for the services you use only. Naturally, there is a huge cost reduction in the process. Furthermore, this is a cheaper solution to dedicated hosting with enhanced flexibility and performance. Hence, we consider this as a cost-effective solution to web hosting.
- Recovery from disasters: If your website has faced some disaster or sudden crash, this hosting solution will provide easy recovery. The disaster recovery feature works better for websites with the architecture of multi-server hosting.
Cons:
- Server security: In most cases, if you have taken expert advice and followed the best hosting practices, the chances of a security breach for your website are low. However, the multi-server feature of this type of hosting can leave your website data vulnerable if you are not monitoring it. To avoid such a situation, we advise choosing a private cloud service instead.
- Accessibility: Since all your data now is stored in a cloud server, it is a mandate to have an internet connection to access them. Though you can access your data from a remote location, the dependence on the internet network makes accessing server data uncertain.
- Downtime: If you are purchasing the hosting services from the direct host, the downtime, in general, is low. However, reseller hosting services are often associated with downtime issues.
Public vs private cloud hosting
Before you purchase your hosting plan, it is time you understand the difference between a public and a private server. While opting for a web hosting service, you always have an option to either share a server with other websites or else enjoy an exclusive or dedicated server. Public and private cloud servers are also similar.
The public server is very similar to that of shared servers. Here, a collection of interconnected servers contain the data for multiple websites. Several virtual accounts here share single hardware, and thus, the resource cost gets shared. However, unlike the traditional shared hosting solutions, the resources of the virtual serves are ring-fenced. Even if you have to share the hardware, you will not be sharing the power of processing, server storage, or similar things with other websites. The only thing that gets shared is the data center rack space. In short, with public virtual hosting, you enjoy the upsides of shared hosting, but not the disadvantages.
Do you want more than a shared server network for your website? There is always a possibility to enjoy a private cloud server set-up where no infrastructure sharing is involved. Needless to say, it will be a costlier option. But it will surely offer better control and security.
In the case of a private server, the resources remain ring-fenced within the server, preventing hardware sharing. You can have the entire virtual resource behind your firewall. The biggest upside of a private server is no doubt the data security of the website. However, it will limit certain abilities when it comes to innovation.
Cloud hosting vs Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting were great for root access, website control, performance, bandwidth, storage, and load time. What made people choose cloud hosting over the benefit of an exclusive server?
The price people paid for dedicated hosting solutions, and its complexity definitely turned the scenario against dedicated servers. The reason why people switch to cloud technology can be listed as-
1. Reliability:
One of the biggest downsides of having a dedicated server was the downtime. If you rely totally on a single server and it shuts down for some technical glitch, your website faces the ultimate loss. On the other hand, with the cloud server, since a collection of interconnected servers has your website information, downtime is low. Even when one server goes offline, the other server picks up the loose end and keeps your website online. Hence, we consider it more reliable.
2. Scalability
As mentioned above, the network of servers in cloud hosting indulges scalability. The interconnected servers have a huge amount of processing potential in reserve to handle a sudden surge in web traffic. Unfortunately, in the case of a dedicated server, a sudden case of spike in web traffic can slow down the website. Scaling your performance is easier with the virtual network as compared to the dedicated servers.
3. Adaptability
Cloud hosting is an extremely versatile solution to web hosting. You get a wide range of hosting plans with options for customization that can adapt to any website requirement. You get the freedom of choosing the architecture, space, security, processing power, etc., as per website requirements.
You don’t get such versatility or flexibility with a dedicated hosting service. Naturally, the introduction of the new hosting concept took the spotlight from dedicated hosting.
What is hyperscale cloud hosting?
By now, we understand that cloud hosting service is far more superior than traditional web hosting services. The three global leaders, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, are now choosing cloud servers over dedicated servers for their website operation.
The server network these companies use has a huge scale infrastructure and hence is known as Hyperscale Cloud. These three platforms offer you much more than just global website hosting, scalability, and security.
Here, you get a wide collection of AI-based services and platforms with machine-learning abilities along with virtual hardware. Naturally, the customer services of these platforms are enhanced. These servers have simple API call integration along with other cloud features.
Apart from the advanced technology, these companies innovate their service constantly, offering every cloud benefit to their customers. These platforms are not for commodity services. The Hyperscale providers aim to reach the pricing bottom. Their race is focused on technology, innovation, and features. If you wish to run a website with AI and machine learning, you can approach these hyperscale providers for your requirement.
Managed cloud hosting services
With the advancement of cloud technology, machine learning, AI, and innovation, hosting has become more complex. Even though it is beneficial, managing the cloud servers had become reasonably difficult for companies, especially when it came to maintain, manage, and migrate the database across servers.
The new technologies in cloud hosting have brought forward the new era of digital transformation. To handle the ever-changing nature of cloud technology, the hyper scale providers are now offering Managed Service Provider (MSPs). This an expert service driver infrastructure for companies that focuses completely on designing and delivering the best hosting solution to suit individual company needs.
An MSP works as continuous support with your company on its cloud journey. It starts with understanding the challenges you face in your business to technological solutions, choosing a suitable hyperscale provider, designing, deploying, and managing the set-up.
The modern concept of cloud hosting requires a fully managed public server. With expert consultancy, designing, and maintenance support, you get to focus better on your business.
Green cloud hosting
The modern doesn’t only look for innovation, AI, and machine learning. The market leaders are constantly looking for an eco-friendly web hosting solution to reduce the impact they create. The hyperscale cloud providers are now considering sustainability along with innovation. They have introduced a new concept to the world – green cloud hosting.
Green cloud hosting can be described as a way of enhancing energy efficiency in the network data center. Some providers depend on renewable sources of energy to reduce the carbon footprint and meet an energy-efficient solution.
In an attempt to go green, the three hyperscale providers focus more on reducing their impact on nature. Microsoft introduced a hosting program that assists its customers in reaching their sustainability goals.
Conclusion
The features of cloud hosting discussed above clearly indicate that it is the best solution to technological challenges businesses have faced so far due to dedicated hosting plans.
Now, you are no more associated with a single network. If one server crashes, the others are there to keep your website working.
As cloud technology advances, it is best to opt for managed hosting plans. It will help you focus better on your business while the experts take care of the website and server maintenance.