What is the Cloud and Cloud Hosting

What is the Cloud and Cloud Hosting When thinking about a web hosting plan, two methods of web hosting most likely come to mind: shared and dedicated. Shared hosting plans are typically cheaper than dedicated hosting, but on the downside, they are more limited in terms of bandwidth and disk space since their site is hosted on a server with many other websites. Dedicated hosting plans give webmasters their very own private server on which to host their websites. The upsides to this are obvious.

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Without having to share resources with other sites, webmasters that opt for a dedicated hosting plan will have full access to the power and storage capacity of their server. However, the downsides are pricing and the fact that if something goes wrong, then it will have to be fixed by the webmaster (or by hiring the services of an expensive IT professional). There is an alternative option to these two hosting methods. That method is cloud hosting, a method that has become more and more popular in recent years.

What is the Cloud?

“The cloud” is just another term for the Internet, a network of computers linked together all over the world. Instead of having access to the power and capacity of just one computer, cloud computing accesses the power of multiple machines working in conjunction. Webmasters have the option of using this “cloud” to host their websites rather than traditional physical servers.

The Pros of Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting has a plethora of benefits in comparison to more traditional hosting methods. Cloud hosting is dynamic, meaning that the resources that are allocated towards a certain website will rise and fall as needed. For example, if a website has a strong month where there are many visitors, the cloud will scale for this high traffic, unlike shared hosts that might buckle under such a heavy load or limit bandwidth. If there are low traffic months, fewer resources will be used by the site. This means less waste in comparison to dedicated hosting plans, but more flexibility than the more limited shared hosting plans. 

Due to its efficient nature, cloud hosting is considered to be more environmentally friendly. The benefit that will likely catch the eyes of most webmasters, however, is pricing. Cloud hosting tends to fall in between shared and dedicated methods regards to how hard one's wallet is hit. This is because of the flexible nature of cloud computing. Webmasters will only pay for what they use rather than solid payment packages. 

Webmasters will pay more during months of high traffic, but when traffic dies down, they will end up paying less. This allows businesses to pay only for what they need, saving money while still getting the web hosting experience that they require. Another additional benefit of the flexible nature of the cloud is that there is no setup time. 

As soon as a cloud hosting package is ordered, it is ready to go, unlike other hosting plans that may require setup time. This can help a site get off of the ground in almost no time.

The Cons of Cloud Hosting

While cloud hosting is a comparatively fresh concept with many pros, there are still some drawbacks to it. The first drawback is security. While this drawback is nebulous (no pun intended), many believe that having data floating in the cloud makes it more vulnerable to third-party access. Secondly, while cloud hosting has its cost benefits, many will not truly utilize them. 

Cloud hosting providers take advantage of clients that are not tech-savvy. In order to get the most out of cloud hosting for their money, webmasters will have to know how to tweak their sites to make them run efficiently. Some cloud hosting providers will also lock clients into a set fee which cancels out the cost benefit of cloud hosting altogether.

 Like all things, it pays to do your research if you want to use a cloud hosting plan. Finally, downtime can be a major issue with cloud computing. When one server in the cloud goes down, there is no cause for concern since sites are hosted across other servers in the cloud. If the cloud central goes down, however, this can cause major problems. 

Typically, when a cloud hosting provider goes down, it goes down much harder than a more traditional server-based host would. For this reason, we must be careful when choosing a cloud web hosting provider, and utilize one that has a history of stability. Cloud hosting can be a great alternative to dedicated or shared hosting plans. Small businesses can have the flexibility that they need to grow without breaking the bank. 

While these benefits do exist, entrepreneurs should do their research on their hosting provider of choice in order to make sure that they get the service that they need at prices that they can afford.

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