An Overview
You may have already heard of cloud computing; but the question is, do you really know what it means? Google Docs and Apple’s MobileMe are just some of the popular examples of this concept. Another innovation has entered the picture – cloud hosting.
Basically a website hosted on clustered servers where online operations are not concentrated to a single server. Security, load balance and hardware resource are handled in a virtual environment. Your website has access to the processing power not only of one server but a cluster of servers that are distributed in real time.
Cloud Computing Defined
To fully understand the concept of cloud hosting, we need to define and understand cloud computing. Cloud computing simply refers to applications and processes held on, and delivered from the internet. All the data that you create and use within these applications and processes are stored online. You can also access these data from anywhere you have an Internet connection. Its services vary from full virtual machines running in the cloud to the calendar application that you can access from a web browser. The distinctive characteristic of cloud computing is that the applications and the stored data are held on the Internet, and not on one computer. It is actually a cluster of computers that act as one whole. You get to use the application and the data from anywhere as long as you have access to the Internet.
Cloud Hosting Defined
The next question would be - How does that relate to cloud hosting?
In cloud hosting, we go on a different but somewhat related plane. This type of hosting service allows you to upload your web applications and associated data to the hosting service. The web application is ‘distributed’ across a cluster of servers. Since your web applications and associated data are hosted by the cluster, any failure or downtime on any one of the servers should not affect your applications. You should also benefit from the levels of bandwidth and processing power designed for applications which field more traffic than your own. This simply translates to unlimited bandwidth, processing power or storage as a result of a hosting system with vast amounts of space capacity.
Shared Hosting vs Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting may sound like shared hosting as you are looking at hosting service shared among several websites. However, there are a lot of differences defining the superiority of cloud hosting.
Shared hosting handles your web application and associated data on one big server along with tens and possibly hundreds of other websites owned by other people or companies. You are exposed to security risk and share among other websites the bandwidth available to that one server.
In cloud hosting, all websites and web applications are uploaded and shared across the entire infrastructure. The service provider decides which sites need processing power and bandwidth by detecting in real time how much traffic they are receiving. This setup provides lots of space capacity in the system. If your website suddenly requires processing power and bandwidth, the service provider then responds in real time by adding the resources required.
