We often hear the term “cloud” when talking about the Internet. If you’re researching web hosting, you’re likely to come across host providers offering cloud web hosting. But what is cloud web hosting?
Rather than subject you to the torturous definition of cloud hosting, let’s just say cloud web hosting isn’t hosted from a single server as with shared hosting. It’s actually a larger group of servers where the load is balanced across all the servers. Thus they are able to share resources and act as a single machine. Since the load is balanced and the resources are shared, resources are available virtually and can be used as needed.
Whew! Even that is a mouthful.
What it boils down to is cloud hosting is an alternative to other types of hosting when your business is growing and your hosting provider needs to keep up with the pace. Inadequate resources can put the kibosh on your business if you’re not prepared, and you’ve worked too hard to let that happen.
Who Needs Cloud Web Hosting?
Cloud hosting is an ideal solution for small online businesses, web designers, and affiliate marketers. It’s the answer for anyone who wants top performance at an affordable cost. It’s also for those who want the additional benefit that comes with cloud hosting… peace of mind.
Cloud web hosting is an option when websites outgrow their current shared web hosting. This is generally due to the fact that they have grown in popularity and traffic to the websites has dramatically increased. In this situation, the most common solution would be to move the sites over to a dedicated server.
But dedicated web hosting can be quite expensive and often requires some technical skill. Cloud web hosting is a cheaper alternative that offers many of the advantages of a dedicated server without the many challenges of a dedicated server.
Advantages of Cloud Web Hosting
There are some advantages to cloud hosting over other types of web hosting. Here are just a few.
Scalability and Immediacy
Since resources are shared across multiple servers, cloud web hosting is easily scalable. If you are running a promotion or a social media campaign that is driving tons more traffic to your website, the performance of the website would suffer. In fact, the increased traffic could cause the website to crash. With cloud web hosting, additional resources can easily be allocated to the site. When the spike in traffic subsides, those resources would easily be removed; all with no downtime and no loss of performance.
Savings
With shared hosting, the only previous option was to move to a dedicated server when experiencing a sudden increase in traffic. Dedicated servers are much more expensive. You would be paying for the increased performance when it was only needed for a short period of time. With cloud hosting, you only need to pay for what you use. If your spike in traffic only lasts two weeks, you can increase your resources for the two weeks and then return them to normal.
Performance
Cloud based web hosting allows a group of servers to act as one machine. This guarantees you the highest level of performance. Your site’s storage is spread across multiple machines as well. There is a built-in redundancy for your data and ensures no single point of failure. Even if a hard drive goes out on one machine, your website’s performance will not suffer and your data is still safe.
Conclusion
Cloud web hosting is slightly more expensive than shared hosting, but considerably cheaper than a dedicated web host. And the disadvantages are few.
The advantages of cloud hosting are certainly something to take into account when you find you need the flexibility to increase your resources to accommodate spikes in traffic. Of course, this could mean you have outgrown your shared web hosting plan and it’s time to upgrade.
When considering web hosting providers, look at all your options and choose what is best for you and the growth of your business.
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