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What Is Cloud Hosting? | HostGator

January 9, 2023 | Author: admin

Cloud hosting has grown in popularity in recent years. If youve been exploring your hosting options for any time at all, then youve no doubt come across cloud hosting before, and probably have a lot of questions. The cloud is a concept that has been employed across many areas of technology, and now its expended out into the hosting arena as well.

Below we explore what cloud hosting is and how it works, and why you might want to consider utilizing cloud hosting to host your own website.

When it comes to the cloud there is no physical thing you can point to and label as the cloud. Just like with cloud hosting there isnt a single physical server you can point to and say, thats a cloud host.

Instead, its a way of storing data across multiple computers and accessing that data via a network connection like the Internet. As a whole, the cloud behaves like a single physical computer, with endless processing power and storage space.

Common cloud-based services that employ a similar process are cloud storage providers like Dropbox and Google Docs. The underlying idea of resource scaling, storage, and access remain the same when extended out to cloud hosting as well.

Cloud hosting is more of a way that you configure servers, instead of an actual tangible thing, but with it being called cloud hosting thats probably what youve come to expect.

In typical server configurations, youre limited to the physical constraints of the server your site is hosted on. With cloud hosting, you rely on a unique server configuration that lets you pull from multiple different servers, which results in an affordable hosting solution thats also scalable and incredibly reliable.

The simplest cloud hosting definition could be a network of virtual servers that tap into an underlying network of physical servers. The extent to which you tap into this network depends upon the actual needs of the website and can be scaled up or down accordingly.

On a technical level, the resources required for your website to function are spread out across multiple remote servers and these resources as tapped as they are needed. Since your website isnt relying on a single server, but instead a network of servers, this network of servers is referred to as the cloud.

The easiest way to break down cloud hosting is to compare it to a single server model. With traditional hosting, you have a single server that contains all of your websites files. When a user visits your website these files are then served up from that single physical server.

Compare this to a cloud hosting setup where your sites resources can be drawn from multiple different virtual server environments.

At the core of a cloud hosting setup is a network of physical servers, with virtualized servers running on top of them. With this setup you can draw from a near-infinite supply of server resources and scale your site as your needs grow.

In most other styles of hosting you pay a monthly rate regardless of whether to not you utilize all of the server resources. With cloud hosting, you only pay for what you use.

So, if youre expecting a post to go viral, or your site is receiving an unusually large amount of traffic, you dont have to completely upgrade your package. All you have to do is scale your resources up during the traffic surge and down once traffic levels return to normal. Instead of having to pay for high hosting fee across the board your pricing matches the total amount of server resources youre using.

With cloud hosting scaling your server resources couldnt be easier. For most cloud servers youll have access to an intuitive site management dashboard that lets you view your sites performance in real time. You can scale server resources up or down on the spotwithout having to wait for approval from your hosting provider.

With most types of hosting your site lives on a single server. If something were to happen to that server, then your site would go offline and you wouldnt be able to get back online until that server is fixed. When your hosting is redundant a site backup will take over your existing site within seconds. However, not all redundancy is created equal. With cloud hosting, youll have a concurrent live version of your website that your host can load immediately.

If youre using any kind of traditional hosting your sites uptime depends upon the physical server environment. If it goes offline, then so does your site. Unless youre utilizing a CDN, which can help to reduce your sites overall downtime.

Cloud hosting has high uptime built into its structure. Since your site will be virtually using the resources of multiple servers, you can simply be transferred to another server if one goes offline or is experiencing technical issues. Plus, with your ability to scale server resources on demand your site wont go offline from an unexpected traffic surge.

You can deploy a cloud hosting server in record time. Unless youre signing up for a beginner shared hosting package, it might take some time to deploy your web server. This can be a hassle if you need your site online quickly, or youre doing a host migration and youre stuck waiting for the server to be ready.

With cloud hosting your site is isolated from any physical server issues including hacking, hardware failure, or system overload. When a physical server is compromised or experiencing an issue, you can simply utilize the physical resources of another server all without having any downtime.

Most cloud servers can offer you blazing fast speeds. In addition to being able to effortlessly increase your sites capacity, cloud hosting also allows for easier load balancing between multiple server environments, which can help to put much less strain on a single servers resources.

Of course, the server hardware foundation will also influence the speed of your site, so look for a cloud host that has multiple caching layers, premium server hardware, and low-density servers.

If your traffic levels are up and down, then its going to be hard to find a host thatll give you thebest value for your money. With cloud hosting, you have the ability to easily scale your server resources up and down on an as-needed basis. Its very difficult to find this level of scalability with any other style of hosting.

In the past cloud servers were a little difficult to manage and it required technical expertise to manage and scale your server effectively. But, with todays cloud hosting you can easily keep track of your hosting and scale it on demand via an intuitive dashboard. You dont need to have a technical background just to run your cloud server.

If youre a company or individual whos concerned about their environmental impact, but need a hosting solution that goes beyond traditional shared hosting, thencloud hosting could be exactly what youre looking for. With cloud hosting, youre utilizing fewer overall datacenters and are only using the server resources you actually require at the moment. By streamlining your resource and data use youre creating less of an environmental impact.

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of cloud server hosting, the technology behind it, and how it can benefit your own website. Start your website with HostGators cloud hosting today!

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What Is Cloud Hosting? – Namecheap Blog

January 9, 2023 | Author: admin

Are you on the hunt for hosting thats fast, always available, and designed for optimal performance?

Look no further than cloud hosting.

Unlike traditional web hosting providers that use physical servers, cloud hosting spreads data across several virtual servers. (This hosting server exists solely in a virtual environment, hence the name, cloud.) With cloud hosting, if you happen to max out on storage or bandwidth on one virtual server, you can easily utilize another for untapped resources. By having multiple servers at your virtual disposal, cloud hosting maximizes uptime and balances out any spikes in website traffic.

Ultimately, hosting with cloud technology makes any web application or website you run super accessible through a cloud network, rather than a single server, which exists with traditional non-cloud hosting. This means greater flexibility, scalability, performance, speed, and uptime.

More and more businesses these days are gravitating towards cloud hosting to meet their online needs. From simple convenience to enterprise-level solutions, cloud hosting offers a wide range of benefits.

Lets delve into just a few:

Whereas with traditional web hosting, you have the choice of either sharing the machine you use with other accounts (Shared Hosting) or running an individual machine specifically for your website (Dedicated Server Hosting).

With cloud hosting, you have a similar choice to make but here its either Public, Private, or Hybrid.

You can think of a public cloud as the equivalent of a shared server, where an infrastructure of networked machines holds data for several websites. While the hardware is shared between other virtualized accounts, only the cost of the resources is shared.

Unlike Shared Hosting, where you share the resources, e.g. disk space and processing power, public cloud hosting means your resources are fenced in, giving you total access.

Public cloud servers are often created by users in seconds, via a control panel or a RESTful API. Easily scalable when needed, these servers allow users to maintain and configure their setup, without having to ask for external help.

Given all the benefits of public cloud hosting, its no surprise why three major players have emerged on the scene Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

These are known as hyperscalers, and include AWS (Amazon), GCP (Google), and Azure (Microsoft). Because their infrastructure is on such a massive scale, they tend to be referred to as hyperscale cloud rather than just cloud.

They offer, quite literally, a basket of ready-made cloud services that are easy to consume, use, and build your service on.

If you prefer not to share your infrastructure with other accounts or websites, a private cloud or private virtualization as its sometimes called, is your best bet. Sure, it comes with a higher cost, but it offers even greater security and control.

A great fit for those who manage sensitive data or cant afford any downtime, a private cloud means you get dedicated hardware, redundant networking, power, storage, as well as the operating system (OS) of your choice. In case you already have some infrastructure in place, private cloud hosting allows you to build on existing hardware, which in turn lowers your investment.

Preferred by larger corporations, private cloud solutions are available from proprietary software developers such as Nutanix, VMware, and Microsoft, while enterprise-grade open source solutions are available from Red Hat and others.

As the name suggests, hybrid cloud brings you the best of both worlds, mixing public and private clouds as well as an on-premises infrastructure.

While every hybrid cloud is different, depending on the organization and/or business, if yours deals with sensitive data and dynamic workloads, deploying a private cloud can work wonders.

However, for testing environments and less-critical workloads, these can easily be deployed in a public cloud. In other words, less-critical applications can be updated frequently in a public cloud, while sensitive databases can be kept secluded in the private cloud.

This approach can maximize cost-savings and productivity while minimizing latency, privacy, and security issues. Its no wonder, then, why this hybrid-like environment is becoming more and more popular. In fact, according to Gartner, the worlds leading research and advisory company, over 75% of midsize and large organizations will have adopted a multi-cloud or hybrid IT strategy by 2021.

As mentioned previously, websites often get hosted on a physical server, whether thats a shared one between many users or an individual one thats dedicated to one user.

Still, in an effort to get on the cloud wagon, many hosting providers (like Namecheap) are now offering cloud-based alternatives, such as cloud storage with Shared Hosting or VPS Hosting.

As a refresher, Shared Hosting is considered the entry-level type of hosting where your website shares resources with other users on the same server.

In an effort to give customers the benefits of cloud technology, Namecheaps Stellar Business Shared Hosting plan now offers a cloud storage solution, which reinforces your website data with an extra layer of protection by distributing it across various servers.

With zero downtime and the highest performance, it provides you with all the stability you need, without blowing your budget. In fact, the Stellar Business Shared Hosting plan starts at just $8.88/month.

VPS Hosting works just like an independent physical server would, except its partitioned into multiple virtual servers.

Sounds similar to cloud hosting servers, no? The main difference here is that instead of having one server thats dedicated to your website, e.g. a VPS, you have access to a network of nearly-unlimited virtual machines.

Out of all the traditional web hosting options available, however, a VPS offers the most hybrid cloud-like benefits, e.g. scalability. The best part? It wont break the bank.

If youre concerned about data security and expect unparalleled performance, a Dedicated Server always has your back.

When compared to cloud hosting, a Dedicated Server means you have your own physical server at your disposal, giving you more reserved resources, an isolated security perimeter, control over low-level server components, and more setup freedom.

A potential drawback? You incur operational costs to manage the infrastructure, monitor and handle any hardware issues, configurations, updates, and more. And, if you find that your resource requirements continue to grow your Dedicated Server, youll need to rent/lease a larger one, therefore paying a higher amount. Plus, migrating to another server can increase your risk of downtime.

With cloud hosting, however, you only pay for what you use and you can always make changes to your requirements.

Do you want to set up your WordPress website but hate, or are wary of, fussing around with the technical aspects? Managed WordPress Hosting is your one-way ticket. Here, WordPress is installed for you, and your WordPress website gets quickly published. You dont have to deal with administrative tasks such as site maintenance, control panel management, or other technical issues. In other words, the hosting aspect of Managed WordPress is more or less an afterthought, letting you focus solely on your website.

Unlike other Managed WordPress Hosting providers, Namecheaps Managed WordPress product, EasyWP, runs on a fully-containerized cloud. Not only was it built in-house to provide you with all the service youd expect from traditional Managed WordPress Hosting, it comes at a fraction of the price youd pay elsewhere. In fact, plans start at just $1.00/month for the first month. It also packs a host of premium features, such as free SSL and CDN (content delivery network). Did we mention it also features 99.9% uptime, with no noisy neighbors to slow you down?

To learn more about the benefits of cloud hosting for WordPress, Isobel Weston breaks it down nicely.

If you find that youve outgrown the resources available with your current hosting provider or that your website is now experiencing huge spikes in traffic, cloud hosting might just be the solution for you.

Whether its uptime, ease of management, or offsite server resource to manage peak loads, cloud hosting makes things a breeze. In fact, many services with cloud hosting are designed with non-techy users in mind, offering an intuitive control panel that makes creating and managing your website easier than ever. Through cloud hosting you can manage your domains, set up FTP accounts for remote file transfers, directly edit databases, and the list goes on. Here youre able to fully focus on your website (or web applications) and forget about the technicalities.

While Shared Hosting may suit a web beginners needs, with cloud hosting, you can enjoy many of the advantages of premium web hosting, e.g. Dedicated Servers, without some of the challenges.

So, what do you think of cloud hosting? Share your thoughts below!

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What is cloud hosting? | Definition from TechTarget

January 9, 2023 | Author: admin

Cloud hosting is the process of outsourcing an organization's computing and storage resources to a service provider that offers its infrastructure services in a utility model.

The cloud provider oversees the setup, cloud infrastructure, security and maintenance, while sometimes allowing clients to customize hardware and applications and scale servers online. Compute and storage resources are spread out across hundreds of virtual machines (VMs) that load balance I/O demands in a cloud infrastructure configuration.

The cloud hosting model is a cheaper alternative to the traditional dedicated server model that requires companies to build and manage their own data centers. In the traditional model, servers and storage, with dedicated hardware and virtual resources, reside on premises and can be a costly capital and operating expense for organizations.

Cloud hosting provides significant capital and operational savings to organizations because they don't have to spend a lot on the initial upfront capital cost associated with owning and managing data centers. IT also has the ability to scale more efficiently, using and paying only for the resources they need. In addition, long-term data retention becomes a more simplified process, eliminating the costly management of disks and tape systems.

Companies using a cloud hosting service get data protection benefits such as high availability and disaster recovery. Many organizations prefer a hybrid model that mixes compute and storage resources residing on premises with compute and storage in a cloud provider's environment.

One of the main benefits of using cloud hosting services is flexible and more cost-efficient scalability in building applications, websites and other services. Because users can scale as needed, they are charged only for the services they use and do not pay for any unused capacity. This payment system makes cloud hosting a relatively inexpensive method of storage.

But drawbacks exist. Security issues with the cloud have gained more attention as the cloud adoption rate has grown. With data leaving the company data center, organizations run the risk of intellectual property theft and loss, compliance violations, lack of oversight over rogue employees' actions, and data breaches.

Additional aspects to consider include high availability, recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO).

Cloud hosting services have fueled a rise in the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) model, in which a third-party provider offers the hardware, software, servers, storage and networking resources to a customer, typically with a pay-per-use method.

Popular cloud hosting offerings include Amazon Web Services (AWS), the Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud and Microsoft Azure. AWS is the dominant player in the market, offering extensive computing services and more regions and zones than other cloud providers. However, Azure and Google have gained traction in recent years.

AWS offers its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) to handle compute services, along with Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and Amazon Glacier for storage. Google offers its Google Compute Engine (GCE) and Google Cloud Storage for the enterprise. Microsoft Azure provides Azure Virtual Machines and Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets, and its storage includes blob, file and queue storage. Its Microsoft Office 365 is a popular cloud service.

All three major public cloud providers offer products that support containers, including Amazon's EC2 Container Service (ECS), Google's Container Engine and Azure's own container services.

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The Best Cloud Storage and File-Sharing Services for 2022

January 9, 2023 | Author: admin

You Can Trust Our Reviews

It wasn't all that long ago that collaborating with people on documents was a huge hassle. You'd make multiple copies of a file and have to add a stupid filename appendix to each one, like "-edited-JD-final-final," in hopes of keeping track of everyone's changes. Equally painful was managing versions of your own documents, as you emailed them to yourself from your personal computer to your work computer. Who misses that? No one has to mess with those problems anymore largely thanks to online file storage and syncing services.

File syncing and storage services provide seamless access to all your dataWord docs, PDFs, spreadsheets, photos, and any other digital assetswherever you are. You no longer need to be sitting at your work PC to see your work files. With cloud syncing you can get to them from your laptop at home, your smartphone on the go, or from your tablet on your couch. Syncing and storage services also add safety and security to your online life because when you sync your files via the cloud, you by default create a backup of them as well. If you lose your laptop, all your files are still accessible to you if you log into your syncing service from any computer.

If you don't yet have a service for storing and syncing your data in the cloud, you should seriously consider getting one. Which one you choose depends on the kinds of files you store, how much security you need, whether you plan to collaborate with other people, and which devices you use to edit and access your files. It may also depend on your comfort level with computers in general. Most of these services are extremely user-friendly, while others offer advanced customization for more experienced techies.

OneDrive, the default online storage and syncing service for Windows and Microsoft 365, offers a wealth of powerful features, as well as apps for all major platforms. It's full-featured, polished, and the one you should use.

IDrive is both a file-syncing and storage tool as well as a full backup service. While its file-sharing features could be more robust, IDrive's low per-GB cost makes it an excellent value.

Google Drive is one of the slickest, fullest-featured, and most generous cloud storage and syncing services, with excellent productivity suite collaboration capabilities.

Dropbox, once a pioneer in the cloud storage and file-sharing space, is falling behind the competition, especially on price. It's as reliable as ever, but it's not the best value.

SpiderOak One Backup offers top-notch security features and flexible backup options. It costs more than many competitors, but it does not impose any limits on the number of PCs you can back up with each account.

Reliable and with hundreds of app integrations, Box works well for businesses, but home users will find the paid plan isn't the best value on the market.

iCloud Drive is the simplest cloud storage and syncing program for Macs, iPhones, and iPads, and it's surprisingly good for Apple users who also have a Windows PC.

Buying Guide: The Best Cloud Storage and File-Sharing Services for 2022

The very best cloud storage solutions play nicely with other apps and services, making the experience of viewing and editing your files feel natural. Especially in business, you want your other software and apps to be able to retrieve or access your files, so making sure you use a service that easily authenticates with the other tools you use is a big deal. Box and Dropbox are particularly strong in this regard.

With Google Drive's web app, you can access all your files, including images, from anywhere.

The range of capabilities of cloud-based storage services is incredible. Many of them specialize in a specific area. For example, Dropbox focuses on keeping a synced folder accessible everywhere. SpiderOak One Backup emphasizes security. Some cloud storage services, such as Apple iCloud, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, are generalists, offering not only folder and file syncing, but also media-playing and device syncing. These products even double ascollaboration software, offering real-time document co-editing.

Distinct from but overlapping in some cases with cloud storage arebackup services, particularly ones that offer online backups. Some of them, such as Carbonite, specialize in data protection and recovery, while others like IDrive, combine data protection with syncing and sharing capabilities.

Most cloud services do offer some level of backup, almost as a consequence of their intended function. It follows logically that any files uploaded to a cloud service are also protected from disk failures, since there are copies of them in the cloud. But dedicated backup services sometimes also create a disk image of your machine so that you can restore not just your files, but everything, including system settings and programs. Syncing, by contrast, is about backing up and managing selected files only.

Box's web interface lets you manage your folders and files.

Just to clear up any confusion, thecloudpart of cloud-based storage refers to putting your files somewhere other than your computer's hard drive. Usually, it means the provider's servers. There's a half-joke saying in the tech world, "There is no cloud. It's just someone else's computer."

Having data in the cloud gives you the ability to access your files through the internet. Your data is usually encrypted before making the journey over the internet to the provider's servers, and it remains encrypted while it lives on those servers.

Well-designed services don't upload a brand-new copy of your files every time you change one little thing. Instead, the file syncing service looks for changes to your files and uploads only them, saving your connection bandwidth.

Dropbox, once installed, shows you icons in the Finder or Windows Explorer indicating the sync status of each file you save to the cloud.

You can access your cloud files through an app or utility software installed on your computer. Once it's installed, it usually shows a small notification icon and creates your synced folder structure that fits into Windows Explorer or the macOS Finder. You can also get to the files via your web browser. Of course, you need an internet connection for it to work, but if you temporarily are without a connection, that's okay. The service waits until the next time you do have a connection and takes care of business then.

For a deeper explanation of the cloud, seeWhat is Cloud Computing?

OneDrive offers 5GB for free, and you get more storage with a Microsoft 365 account.

Many cloud storage services have a free account that usually comes with some limitations, such as the amount of storage or a size limit on files you can upload. We prefer providers that offer some level of permanent free service, even if you get only 2GB of storage space rather than a time-based trial. This way you can fully integrate a service into your life for several weeks for real-world testing. During that time, you get a feel for how it works and what might go wrong with your setup.

What could possibly go wrong? Human error accounts for a good deal of cloud storage tragedies, but the dropped internet connection is another common troublemaker. Not to mention that every internet service suffers the occasionaloutage(Opens in a new window). Ask around (or just look through our review comments), and you'll hear sad stories of how cloud storage can go wrong. One of the benefits of paying for an account is that it usually comes with additional support from the provider, so if anything does go wrong, someone from the company can help you resolve the issue.

There are many other reasons to pay for cloud storage, from getting a lot more space (a terabyte really doesn't cost all that much anymore) to being able to upload huge files. That last benefit is relevant to graphic designers, video editors, and other visual artists who often host enormous files. Other perks of paying for your cloud storage often include increased access to file-version history (meaning you can restore an important business proposal to the version you had before your colleague made a bunch of erroneous changes), more security, and more features for collaboration and teamwork.

Here, we highlight only the best cloud storage services among those we've tested. When PCMag tests these services, we evaluate their feature sets, ease of use, stability, and price. There are other cloud storage services on the market that didn't make the cut for this article, based on these criteria. Click the review links for more detailed information on each of our favorite cloud storage and file-syncing services.

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