How Does Cloud Web Hosting Operate?

What is cloud web hosting really? The term 'cloud' appears to be very trendy in today's IT, Internet and web hosting parlance. Yet, just a few actually can say what cloud hosting is. Probably it is a smart idea to inform yourself about cloud web hosting services. To render a quite long story short, we will firstly describe to you what cloud hosting is not.

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

1. Offering a remote disk storage solution, which comprises one single file storage device for all clients, does not turn any given web hosting vendor into a real cloud web hosting company.

The cPanel hosting companies name the ability to distribute remote disk storage solutions a cloud web hosting service. Until now there is nothing bad about the cloud classification, but... we are talking about website hosting services, not remote disk storage services for individual or corporate purposes. There's constantly one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to dub a shared hosting service, powered by a one-single-server web hosting platform, exactly like cPanel, a "cloud web hosting" service. That's because the remaining components of the whole hosting platform must be working in exactly the same manner - this does not relate solely to the remote data storage. The rest of the services involved in the whole web hosting process also must be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's quite problematical. A very scanty number of hosting distributors can really attain it.

2. It Involves Domain Names, Email Addresses, Databases, File Transfer Protocols, Web Hosting CPs, and so on.

Cloud web hosting is not confined to a remote file storage only. We are discussing a hosting service, serving numerous domain names, sites, e-mail addresses, and so on, right?

To dub a web hosting service a "cloud web hosting" one takes a lot more than supplying solely remote disk storage mounts (or probably physical servers). The mail server(s) need to be devoted solely to the electronic mail related services. Carrying out nothing else than these concrete assignments. There might be just one single or possibly a whole stack of mail servers, determined by the total server load generated. To have an actual cloud web hosting service, the remote database servers should be working as one, irrespective of their actual amount. Performing nothing else. The same is valid for the clients' web hosting CPs, the File Transfer Protocol, etc.

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

The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of an authentic cloud web hosting distributor will support numerous data center locations on different continents.

Here's an instance of a Domain Name Server of a genuine cloud web hosting plans provider:

dns1.josidelhosting.com

dns2.josidelhosting.com

If such a Domain Name Server is supplied by your hosting vendor, it's not a sure thing that there is a cloud web hosting platform in use, but you can definitely be convinced when you see a DNS like the one beneath:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud web hosting platform. This kind of DNS plainly displays that the hosting platform in use is one-single-server based. Probably it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-single-server hosting solution and maintains a market share of more than 98%. In cPanel's case, a single physical machine takes care of all web hosting services (web, e-mail, DNS, databases, FTP, web hosting CP(s), web site files, and so on).

Remote File Storage - The Warped Definition of Cloud Web Hosting.

So, a cloud web hosting solution is not limited just to a remote file storage solution, as a lot of hosting corporations wish it was. Unfortunately for them, if that was the case, most of the file hosting firms would have been categorized as cloud hosting ones a long time back! They are not categorized as such, since they plainly offer file web hosting solutions, not cloud web hosting solutions. The file web hosting platform seems indeed quite plain, when compared to the hosting platform. The remote disk storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, as it's simply one tiny part of the whole cloud hosting platform. There's a lot more to be discovered in the cloud web hosting platform: the web hosting CP cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the DNS cloud, the FTP cloud, the electronic mail cloud and... in the not too distant future, probably a few brand new clouds we presently are not informed about will come up out of nowhere.