The Buzz Behind Cloud Computing And Hybrid Cloud Hosting

The newest buzzword in the web hosting industry is Cloud Hosting. This is facilitated through cloud computing, which too is a relatively new concept. Since both of these are fairly novel in the field, you will come across just a handful of Cloud Hosting Providers. But that does not mean they will be unable to create a superb plan that would meet all your requirements.

Since this trend is spreading like wildfire, more and more providers are setting up camp and coming up with options galore for customers. This will be extremely helpful for them since they would not only have more choice in service providers, with more competition in the market they would be able to pay reduced prices which would help them save money.

Cloud hosting utilizes the resources of several servers that are clustered to form a cloud. What happens is that many servers are interconnected virtually to form mega networks. These networks form the ‘cloud’. When a website is hosted over the cloud, it can use the resources of several servers to meet its needs. Even if a server goes down in the network, there are many others that can take its place immediately and supply on-demand resources to the site. Also, if a website sees a surge in traffic and requires more bandwidth or any other resource, it can access those instantly from the cloud network.

Most clients that go for cloud hosting are the ones that have already outgrown the resources made available by their current hosting provider. It is true that when a site, which is on shared hosting, grows extremely large and constantly strains for resources, it can go for dedicated hosting but most clients do not prefer to do so. This is because dedicated hosting is a really expensive option and one does require quite a bit of IT know-how to be able to utilize it effectively. On the other hand, cloud computing does away with most of such challenges while offering plenty of similar advantages.

So what happens is that in a cloud setting, each server in the network has a set of tasks that it does. To ensure that the web hosting services remain unhampered in the event of server fail, there are several others that would take over immediately to make available the resources of the failed server. When a client hosts their website on a cloud server, all the information related to that site is spread over several redundancies. This allows for the site to be always available for both the host and the traffic.

The biggest benefit of cloud hosting is that it offers all the elements that are necessary for management of a website – right from database management tools to cloud storage. Most providers offer an easy to use control panel, which has been designed keeping non-technical users in mind, to their clients. This panel has several features that allow the user to easily create and manage the website.

It also offers the advantages of scalability and reliability. You are free to go for any amount of resources when you require them, which is a feature that’s not available with any other type of hosting. Also, since it is a pay-as-you-go model, you will only pay for what you use – nothing more, nothing less.

There are three main types of cloud hosting option available. These are:

Public cloud – in this type, all the physical and virtual resources required to host a site are owned and operated by a third party service provider. These resources include storage, networking, applications, services, hardware, etc. This option is great for managing simple, repetitive workloads.

Private cloud – in this type, all the computing paraphernalia is owned and operated by an organization for its own use, whether for its own employees or partners or customers. It can also be created by a third party provider for the exclusive use of just one client/organization. Unlike public cloud, the private cloud is not open for everyone’s consumption and is thus protected by a robust firewall that’s been customized for the client.

Hybrid cloud – as the name suggests, this option is a mix of both the other options. It combines and utilizes services and data from public and private clouds with several touch-points to create a dynamic cloud environment for the client.

This option came about to provide value derived from both public and private clouds and not be restricted to either. With companies realizing that they would require different types of cloud services to meet the unique needs of their customers, the hybrid version is what is emerging as the most popular among the three since it can be customized to do so.