What’s the difference between cloud hosting and shared hosting

Cloud is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It's up to you to decide where you sit.





We’re used to seeing the word ‘cloud’ stuck in front of basically every technological term out there. And while tech-savvy individuals have a decent grasp of what ‘the cloud’ is, the same can’t be said for all its potential applications.
Cloud hosting, for example, is not simply shared hosting with a cloud badge stuck on the front of it. Cloud hosting is in a league of its own when compared to more traditional forms of shared hosting, and offers many unique advantages that qualify its existence. This article will explore these differences.

So, what is cloud hosting?

At its most basic level, the critical differentiator of cloud hosting is the cloud. No prizes for that part. Just like cloud computing, cloud hosting gets its name because it draws computing power from “the cloud,” i.e. a pool of dynamically allocated resources across a large network of physical components, instead of a fixed set of hardware.
Cloud hosting is, in theory, infinitely scalable because it allows an unlimited number of machines to effectively act as one system. By leveraging virtualisation, multiple physical servers are pooled together and presented to the website or application as one machine. 

The benefits of cloud hosting mirror many of the benefits of other cloud computing services, such as improved reliability and redundancy, higher performance, and on-demand scalability. All of these are particularly well suited to websites, where a major new product launch or the unexpected success of a viral video can send flocks of new customers to a website in a matter of minutes. Where regular hosting might break under the jump in workload (dependent on how much resource is permanently allocated to the site of course), with cloud hosting, the website’s resources can automatically scale up to meet the demand. This means that your website is always ready for the unexpected.

The pooling of resources also lends itself well to the website’s redundancy. With your website hosted over multiple servers instead of just one, the failure of one server will not mean the failure of your site. Any slack left by a downed server is automatically picked up by the other servers in the cloud. If those servers are struggling then additional servers are automatically brought online to accommodate. Ultimately, cloud hosting is designed to deliver the guaranteed service level that your website needs.

And shared hosting?

Shared hosting on the other hand is a web hosting solution where each customer receives a portion of the same physical server hardware to run their website or application. Shared hosting is often the most economical way to get a project online, because the service provider houses multiple customers on a single web server, resulting in lower costs overall.

While shared hosting can be perfect as a cost-effective platform for less demanding projects, it certainly has its limits. With several customers sharing one set of physical hardware, individual users can’t rely on a guaranteed level of server performance.
This might not be an issue for sites and applications with minimal requirements or low visitor numbers, but when it comes to running intensive, business-critical processes, many users find that shared hosting isn’t up to snuff.

A contentious issue

The reason shared hosting isn’t suitable for intensive applications? In a word: contention. The full power of the hardware will always be pulled in several directions at once, with different websites and applications in constant competition for processing power.
Imagine one customer on a shared platform gets a sudden spike in traffic. Luckily, other websites on the same server are quiet, so some resources can be allocated to cope with the extra visitors. But what happens when several websites are popular at once?
The server only has a finite amount of resources to parcel out, so intensive applications will regularly struggle to get what they need. The end result is inconsistent performance, slow loading times and a shoddy experience for the end-user. If your website is a major source of leads or sales, this presents a serious shortcoming.
Even with high contention, shared hosting can still use sophisticated technology to provide decent performance, at least for sites with low or medium requirements. But the fact remains: demanding sites will never get predictable, consistently high performance on anything other than a dedicated platform.

Cloud hosting = dedicated (virtual) servers

One major misconception about cloud hosting is that it doesn’t offer any significant performance boost when compared to a normal shared hosting solution. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
With cloud hosting, every single resource you configure is dedicated to you alone. Processors, RAM and SSD storage provide guaranteed performance on cloud hosting, exactly the same way they do on complete servers. In practice this means your WordPress blog or Drupal site can run with the same high level of performance you’d get from a dedicated server. Expecting higher visitor numbers? It’s a simple case of configuring increased server resources.
Like a shared platform, everything can also be managed from one central control panel, but with the flexibility to manage files via SFTP, install and update applications (e.g. WordPress), manage databases and DNS, and manipulate source code. Cloud hosting can be administered in just the same way as a physical, shared platform because the website and applications view it as such. Virtualisation tricks the website into thinking it is still hosted on one piece of hardware – with the processors, RAM etc. that have been allocated to it. The fact that these resources are actually split among four different servers in two different datacentres doesn’t matter.
But of course, as mentioned before, the biggest difference is that unlike shared hosting, cloud hosting offers fully dedicated resources that can be scaled on demand for guaranteed performance. A kind of ‘dedicated hosting’ option for users who want the increased power of their own server, but don’t want to deal with server management.

Make your mind up time

For those organisations where the reliability and scalability of their websites are critical, cloud hosting has become the de facto standard. If your primary sales channel is your website, then cloud hosting is a no brainer. On the other hand, for those organisations where website traffic is relatively low and predictable, and selling online is not so important, then the greater affordability of shared hosting may be all that is required. Now all you have to do is decide where you sit



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Colon cancer

Image
Colon cancer is cancer of the large intestine (colon), which is the final part of your digestive tract. Most cases of colon cancer begin as small, noncancerous (benign) clumps of cells called adenomatous polyps. Over time some of these polyps can become colon cancers. Polyps may be small and produce few, if any, symptoms. For this reason, doctors recommend regular screening tests to help prevent colon cancer by identifying and removing polyps before they turn into cancer. Symptoms Signs and symptoms of colon cancer include: A change in your bowel habits, including diarrhea or constipation or a change in the consistency of your stool, that lasts longer than four weeks Rectal bleeding or blood in your stool Persistent abdominal discomfort, such as cramps, gas or pain A feeling that your bowel doesn't empty completely Weakness or fatigue Unexplained weight loss Many people with colon cancer experience no symptoms in the early stages
Read more

Advantage of Vitamin K2

Image
 Advantage of Vitamin K2    Vitamin K2 or menaquinone is a basic vitamin that many individuals never know about until the point that they have their first kid and the medical caretaker controls a Vitamin K infusion. Tragically, this basic supplement is frequently ignored, and it is vital at all life stages, not only for infants or pregnant mothers. Different vitamins and minerals like Vitamin D, Magnesium and Calcium get the consideration they merit, however K2 is regularly overlooked with critical results. What is Vitamin K2 or menaquinone ? Vitamin K is a fat dissolvable vitamin that is vital for blood thickening and that adds to a sound heart, bones and insusceptible framework. There are a few distinct structures, mostly K1 and K2, however they act diversely in the body: Vitamin K1– (or phylloquinone) is characteristic frame found in greens and vex that is utilized by the liver for appropriate blood coagulating. Vitamin K2– (or menaquinone) is a more absorbable type of Vitamin
Read more

Dolonex DT Tablet

Image
Dolonex DT Tablet  is a mitigating drug used to diminish irritation in joint pain patients. It likewise assists with joint agony, redness and swelling, spondylitis, Gout and so on. It contains Piroxicam 20 mg which is a NSAID (non-steroidal mitigating drug) that diminishes irritation.  Dolonex DT Tablet is for the most part used to regard irritation in Arthritis as it is a NSAID yet there are a few different uses where it could be taken:- Joint pain Spondylitis Joint Pain Gout Postoperative Pain Rheumatoid Arthritis Osteoarthritis Redness Swelling This is a non-thorough rundown and there may be different utilizations and advantages of the Dolonex DT Tablet too. Kindly don't take this medication since somebody has taken it with comparable manifestations. It would be ideal if you counsel a doctor or a master before utilizing the medication. Dolonex DT Tablet: Side Effects Aside from the employments of Dolonex DT Tablet, there could be sure symptoms related with the medication. If you
Read more