So You’re Curious About Cloud Hosting?

Would you know the difference between cloud hosting and ‘true’ cloud hosting? Many people would struggle to give a definitive answer and this allows some hosting providers to offer cloud hosting services that are not really cloud at all. Isn’t all cloud hosting the same? The answer is a definite ‘No’.

Cloud Hosting: The Freedom to Choose

For many years, website owners have been forced to choose between expensive VPS and dedicated hosting options when they required hosting packages with more resources. These packages often included unnecessary resource allocation, which the user did not require but was forced to select, in order to get the actual resource they needed.

A webmaster wanted more RAM but was forced to pay top dollar for a plan that included a gargantuan HDD, when all they really needed was the RAM. But with the introduction of cloud hosting this all changed. Hosting users can now create their own customized hosting plans and only pay for what they need, and for what they actually use. Throw in some extra reliability, and a splash of scalability and it is easy to see why cloud has standard hosting shaking in its boots.

What Exactly is Cloud Hosting? A Nice Simplified Explanation…

A large group of physical servers are interconnected. This is referred to as a ‘cloud’. Virtual Machines (user accounts) can then be installed on the various servers. These VMs are controlled by a piece of software installed on to the servers called a ‘hypervisor’ (common software is VMware, XEN, and Hyper-v). Each VM can then be allocated a certain amount of resources (processor, RAM, HDD). This is dependant on the specifications selected by the account user.

By joining many physical servers into a cloud formation, the hosting provider is able to balance overall load between the servers (usually termed ‘load balancing’), as well as greatly reducing reliance for service provision on individual physical servers, and increasing the ability to deploy resources as and when required.

What Can Cloud Hosting Offer You?

• Greater flexibility and overall control over hardware, software, and networking.
• Increased availability of hosting plans: Pay-as-you-go, On-demand, instantly scalable.
• Load balancing
• Fault tolerance
• Disaster recovery
• Self-service portal
• Rapid provisioning
• Redundant and self-healing infrastructure

Searching for the ‘True’ Cloud

Many companies are offering cloud hosting services, but not all offer what is referred to as a ‘true’ cloud solution. A ‘true’ cloud will feature the following options:

1. Contract Free Hosting

Gone are the days of imposed annual or bi-annual contracts. A company offering a ‘true’ cloud will provide a plan that comes with a flexible monthly, or hourly, billing arrangement with no cancellation penalties. Cloud web hosts may offer a billing discount for customers agreeing to sign up for 3, 6, 12, or 24 months, but there must be the option to sign up to a non-fixed monthly plan.

2. Unscheduled Resource Surges

Consumers must be able to use what they need when they want it. The web host should be able to provide and implement any rapid increases in resource usage without any disruption to the clients service.

3. Scalability and Fast Implementation

Cloud hosting has the advantage over standard hosting because its plans are fully scalable. A ‘true’ cloud service will allow a customer to increase and decrease resources when necessity dictates and any changes will occur in minutes, not hours. This almost instantaneous flexibility must be available directly to customers with no requirement to contact the host before alterations can be made.

4. Some API Availability

While not an essential feature of a ‘true’ cloud provider, providing a programmable API is rapidly becoming a feature of the more forward-thinking cloud hosting companies. There should be at the very least some client access allowed.

Choosing a Cloud Host: A Few Important Tips

Cloud hosting is no different from regular hosting in respect of the quality of available providers. There are excellent cloud hosts, average ones, and some who provide inferior service. The majority of providers will offer the resources you require, so simply judging a host on its resource options is not always the best solution.

It is far more prudent to look into the services that are not always blazoned on the home pages. Here are a few factors to look for in a cloud host:

• What level of data security is provided?
• Does the host offer vertical and horizontal scalability?
• Is data stored redundantly? And if so, is multiple redundancy used?
• What management applications are available?

Cloud hosting can provide the flexibility, pricing structure, and reliability most website owners are searching for. But while it is easy to locate information about general hardware, software, and other resources on a host’s website, finding out about more detailed factors may require a little more digging. The best way to find out if a cloud host is right for you is to contact them directly and interrogate them until you’re happy!

This article was written by Roko Nastic of WebmasterFormat. Learn more about cloud hosting services.