Thursday 11 July 2013

Cloud Hosting Basics

Once you have decided to put up a web site, one of the most important things that you would need to decide on is what web host service you should be using. While typical web hosting is of course, a tried and true method, the newer and innovative cloud web hosting could prove to be more beneficial and useful for you.

What is cloud hosting?

Cloud hosting is a type of hosting service which makes use of several clustered servers unlike the single servers of typical web hosting. You cant get such high end hosting from 1 dollar web hosting providers. The clustered servers are what are referred to as the cloud. With the clustered servers or cloud, it means that your website uses the virtual resources of several servers, balancing the load between them. This process is referred to as cloud computing – the sharing of the load between several servers. Security and hardware resources are all running “on the cloud,” meaning that practically all essential processes of running your web site happen virtually, on several servers.

Advantages and disadvantages of cloud hosting

The number one benefit that cloud hosting offers is that if your site gets a lot of hits in a short amount of time, it won’t burn away your server. A typical web host will not be able to keep up with the demand and your site might experience indefinite downtime – not a pretty picture! With cloud web hosting you won’t typically run into such problems since you are making use of several servers.  The load is distributed so you shouldn’t run into having a loaded up server. Also, whenever your site gets unexpectedly busy, you can go ahead and gather more clouds to help out. When not in use, you can let go of the extraneous clouds, simply calling in the support when it is actually needed.

The best thing about this is that you don’t actually need to call and wait for customer service to assist you. Whenever you need an increase in your available resources, the cloud will immediately distribute the load to several servers. No need to deal with pesky customer service and users won’t even notice it since the process is quite seamless.

Of course, one might argue that a dedicated server can also offer the exact same solutions. Sure, dedicated servers can – however, that can be quite costly not to mention would require some level of technical know-how. Cloud hosting will definitely cost you less, not to mention much easier to execute.

Tips for choosing a cloud hosting company

Cloud hosting is fairly new and there is not much of a choice between cloud web hosting companies that you can use. Of course, you’d need to be more discerning in order to find out the best cloud host service for your needs.

The first thing that you need to keep in mind is what do you actually plan to achieve with your cloud service? Are you looking for load balancing, backups or scalability? List these down so you’ll have a frame of reference when you begin your search.

Next, check for the transfer speed and cloud server speed.  Providers would allow you to scale server capacity as needed. And since most providers would offer evaluation periods, you can actually check it out before signing up for the service.  Test drive the service thoroughly so you will know if they can provide you with the services that you would need.

One of the upsides of cloud web hosting is its ease of use. However, first time users might run into kinks and you should be aware of the amount of service that they actually provide. Consider outages – as all cloud providers would have – be sure that you can still be secure should and when these happen.

To be able to maximize the benefits of cloud hosting, the best thing that you can do is to be informed. Research, ask and arm yourself with the necessary information regarding web host providers so you can get the service that you need.

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