Cloud Web Hosting

Hosting sites in the cloud have significantly increased in popularity in recent years.

What is Cloud Hosting?

To understand cloud hosting, we need to define what “the cloud” is. You probably use it every day and don’t even realize it.

The cloud is just a network of servers working together to perform a task. Some examples of things you can do with the cloud are:

• Store and backup files
• Host web sites
• Software on demand
• Run applications and services
• Analyze data

One of the most common uses is file storage. If you have ever used Dropbox or Evernote, you have used a cloud service.

Similar to VPS hosting, sites hosted in the cloud use virtualization to emulate a physical server environment. These virtual servers can work together to create your own mini-cloud service for your web site or application.

Cloud hosted web sites have the ability to easily scale up and down to meet traffic and computational demands. They can have copies of the files hosted in different locations all over the world to speed up the loading of a web site to the visitor. This is known as a content delivery network.

Benefits of Cloud Hosting

Expense

Compared with the cost of purchasing and running your own network of physical servers, cloud hosting is much more cost effective. The company running the service purchases and maintains all the physical servers associated with their cloud.

Scalability

Web sites and applications have the ability to scale from one to potentially millions of virtual servers, all working together to run the site.

Performance

The physical servers that are part of a cloud service are run on a worldwide network and have fast connections to high traffic hubs on the Internet, thereby shortening the number of servers a request needs to travel through. The lower latency allows for faster loading of web sites, and a better visitor experience.

Reliability

Cloud services are usually very redundant, meaning data and files are replicated across many locations to mitigate the potential failure at any one location. The use of virtualization software makes the backup, restore, and replication of files and data much easier.

Is Cloud Hosting right for me?

Similar to VPS or Dedicated hosting, having your site on a cloud server can be a complex setup. There are options for full control over the server, to very little by going with a managed hosting solution.

The expense can be less than a VPS or Dedicated plan if you do everything with configuration of the server and software yourself. It can also be very expensive, especially for complex or very busy sites.

It’s a great alternative to building your own in-house solution for the reasons mentioned above in the benefits section.

Cloud Hosting Options

With the growing popularity of cloud hosted web sites, there are more options than ever. The following are some I recommend:

A Small Orange
Their cloud VPS solution is an excellent option. It allows for flexibility, scalability, and redundancy in file storage. I have had great experiences with their customer service.

Siteground
Another excellent hosting company for cloud sites. They are well known for their support. The cloud hosting is a little on the pricey site when compared with others, but they are fully managed.

Linode
These guys specialize in Cloud VPS hosting plans and are very affordable. They require more technical knowledge to get things up and running. There are plenty of tutorials out there on how to do so.

Amazon
Probably the most extensive cloud offerings can be found at Amazon. They have rapidly innovated in the space with close to a hundred cloud hosted services offered, including web hosting.

Setting up servers here requires a good amount of technical knowledge, but it works very well when done right. There are many hosting companies out there running their services on top of the Amazon cloud services.

Terms Used on This Page

Virtualization

Software designed to create virtual containers where an entire operating system and supporting software can be installed independently of the host system.

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A system of servers around the world working together to deliver static content to visitors from their closest geographic location, thereby decreasing the load time of a web page.

Latency

The amount of time elapsed between a request for a resource and the response time back to the requestor.