Quick Guide to Cloud Web Hosting & Its Benefits

Quick Guide to Cloud Web Hosting & Its Benefits

Your website needs a host – a place to maintain the site and all of its data. If you are creating your unique website, either for personal or business use, you will need to decide what kind of hosting services you will be using. Today, a big part of this decision will revolve around cloud web hosting.

But what does cloud web hosting mean and is it a good idea for you or your business? Here’s a quick guide to help you navigate your way around the issues.

Cloud web hosting in a nutshell

Cloud web hosting operates on a series of interconnected web servers with your site’s data rendered from various servers. What this means is that your website and all of the information on it aren’t stored on a single server (called as dedicated) server but rather scattered around the service providers servers. The combination of servers is known as the cloud, hence giving the web hosting service its name.

Another way of understanding cloud web hosting and especially how it differs with traditional web hosting is with the usage of the server space. Now, a dedicated server would have a pre-determined slot available for your site. If you needed more space, you would have to contact the service provider and organise an upgrade – you essentially would just have what you paid for. On a cloud server,you will be using virtual resources that scale according to your needs.

The other options: Dedicated servers & VPS

What are the other options besides cloud web hosting? If you are new to web hosting, you should be aware of these other options as well to ensure you pick the right choice for you.

As mentioned above, dedicated hosting is a popular option. It means your site and its data are stored in a secure and stable data centre. You will have the full control of the server and you can often tweak the performance as you wish.

Another version of this is the Virtual Private Server (VPS), which means the server is divided into portions and each portion has its own user. You still have a single server but it might not be the whole server but a portion of it.

What are the big benefits of cloud web hosting?

Since you have a few options available, why should you consider cloud web hosting? The main benefit of using cloud web hosting instead of the other alternatives is all about reliability. If something goes wrong with your dedicated server then your website will be down – you might even lose every bit of data you had if you haven’t been smart with your backups.

However, a web of servers guarantees that performance issues in one are not going to affect your whole site. Therefore, you are much able to respond to problems because you don’t need to worry about having everything go down at once – this lack of disruption can be especially important for businesses.

There is another big benefit for cloud web hosting and it can be crucial factor for businesses thinking about their web hosting options. A cloud-based system will be more equipped to scale according to your business needs. As your business continues to grow and the website keeps getting more traffic and information, the cloud system is better able to cope with this additional pressure. If you suddenly have a surge in users and problems because of it, the cloud web hosting solution will just gather more resources to deal with it. Once your site doesn’t require as much performance, the clouds are released for other purposes.

As you can imagine, this is useful for a business that might have different levels of visitors during the week or even a day – you don’t need to waste resources just to ensure it can handle many users but you’re also not running on a server that won’t be able to deal with a big surge.

Cloud web hosting and the cost of it all

Of course, you always need to consider the price. It’s important to understand that the above benefits tend to come with a bigger price tag. While your actual usage of the cloud servers will influence the price, the overall costs associated are higher than with a dedicated server or a VSP. However, this doesn’t mean cloud web hosting is expensive.

First, there are plenty of options out there and different web hosting providers have different deals available. Furthermore, you can often find special deals through OZCodes for hosting providers like HostPapa and iPage. If you do your research and shop around, you can bring the costs down. In addition, you should always remember that downtime on your website will also cost and therefore, the reliability of cloud web hosting might pay itself back.

So, if you are looking for a web hosting service, always consider your needs and keep the above tips in mind. Cloud web hosting can be a magnificent option for anyone looking for a reliable and scalable service.