Reasons to Switch to Cloud Web Hosting

People often think that because something is digital, it's relatively easy. For example, if you're a digital artist, misinformed individuals think that your fairy godmother magically aids you with your art through your digital tablet. Beautiful art is done with a swish of your stylus! Or if you're a website developer, you must be a genius with codes and you can type them up with the speed of light just like those hackers in movies. People outside the website development industry don't often hear about the pains of choosing a web hosting provider or plan, looking for the right website designer, etc.

If you are a new website or digital industry professional, or a business owner looking to create a website for your startup company-- then you still have so much to learn. We have articles that can help you with your research. But if you are specifically looking for information about Cloud Web Hosting, then you're in the right place.

What is Cloud Hosting?

There are many types of web hosting that web developers and business owners can choose from depending on their needs. Most types of web hosting needs physical servers to function, but cloud hosting is a different story.

Cloud hosting uses a cluster of resources from a centralised pool instead of a single server-- this means that it utilises multiple different servers to maximise uptime and to balance the load. Since it does not depend on a single physical server, everything will keep on running smoothly. Why? Because if one server fails, another server can take over. The main advantages of cloud hosting are its uptime, isolated resources, and its reliability.

What is the Cloud?

So we've been talking about cloud hosting for a while, but what is the cloud. Imagine a web of interconnected computers from different locations-- it doesn't sound too exciting when you're new to these things-- but that's pretty much it! The more machines or computers hooked up to the network, the more resources are added onto the cloud. If you decide that the best web hosting for your needs is cloud hosting, then you'll get a portion of the cloud cluster instead of a certain amount of space from a single physical server.

The cloud is an off-site server where you can store your data with minimal risk.

On-Premises Infrastructure vs. Cloud Computing

One of the unique selling points of cloud hosting is its security. In this regard, some people may see On-prem or on-premises infrastructure as a good traditional alternative.

On-Prem Infrastructure

On-prem is a term used to refer to private data centres that companies use to house their own facilities. Working with an on-prem infrastructure means that maintenance is also done in-house.

On-prem infrastructure allows companies to run private clouds, wherein the resources are also virtualised much like public clouds.

Cloud

As mentioned previously, the cloud consists of a network of many different computers and machines. These facilities can include servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics and intelligence. But unlike the on-prem, cloud computing often involves a third-party service provider. The clients do not have access to any physical facilities but they can access and manage their accounts through a web browser.

Types of Cloud for Web Hosting

As the name suggests, a public cloud is a service offered to multiple customers, while a private cloud is offered to a single company or organisation.

Public Cloud

Public clouds include SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS or the three common models of cloud services, we'll get to these three in a few. Public cloud services operate on remote servers that a third-party service provider manages. Clients using public cloud services can access and manage their account through their web browser.

Private Cloud

A private cloud service is not shared with another organisation, it is dedicated to one company only. The sole user has the cloud all to themselves. They have the exclusive use of the cloud resources that their web hosting provider has assigned to them.

Note that an organisation has the option to create an on-prem infrastructure where they have their own private cloud located on-site the company data centre if they don't want to work with a third-party provider. However, keeping and maintaining on-premise servers is incredibly expensive, it should be a last resort.

Three Models of Cloud Services

We mentioned the three common models of cloud services namely IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. They may look like words in Parseltongue from Harry Potter, but these are abbreviations related to cloud hosting services. To give you a better idea of what these are, read on:

SaaS: Software as a Service

SaaS is more commonly known as cloud application services. SaaS uses the internet to deliver applications to users through the help of a third-party service provider. Most SaaS applications don't need any downloads or installations on the client side since they run directly through a web browser.

Some examples of SaaS include Google GSuite, Dropbox, Cisco and WebEx.

PaaS: Platform as a Service

PaaS is also known as cloud platform services which provide cloud components to some software. It provides a framework for developers that they can use to create customised applications. The cloud service provider manages all servers, storage and networking while the developers continue to manage the applications.

Some examples of PaaS include AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Windows Azure, and Google App Engine.

IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service

IaaS is also known as cloud infrastructure services which are composed of very scalable and automated resources. This cloud service model offers flexibility to business as it doesn't force a company to buy the hardware completely right away, IaaS allows the business to purchase resources as needed.

Some examples of IaaS include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cisco Metacloud, Microsoft Azure, and Google Compute Engine.

Why Do You Need to Know About the Three Models of Cloud Services?

If you really think about it, cloud hosting has a similar function as traditional web hosting-- except that cloud hosting is better in many ways. However, you might confuse public cloud services as something similar to shared hosting which is not the case at all. Understanding the three common models of cloud services will help you realise how public cloud hosting is different from shared hosting.

Cloud hosting offers a reliable infrastructure and fast-growing options to their clients while shared hosting offers affordable but inflexible hosting solutions to their users. There are many reasons why you should not use shared hosting for your business website. One of the most notable reasons is that it lacks the flexibility to accommodate growth.

If you're still not considering cloud services for your web hosting, keep reading.

Reasons to Switch to Cloud Hosting for Your Website

When you are running a business, you want everything to run as smoothly as possible. This sentiment should extend from your physical facilities to your virtual contact with your potential clients. Choosing the right web hosting for your website will boost your website performance AND improve user-experience. The better the experience your users have, the better chance your website will rank high in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP). You should ensure that your web host plan is working hand in hand with your SEO efforts and not against each other.

Here are some of the reasons why businesses are switching to cloud hosting for their website and why you should too:

You can control your expenses.

Don't even pretend that you don't care about the costs of a website. If you genuinely don't care about the expenses that your business incur, then keep in mind that there is a very fine line between investing and squandering business funds.

One of the great things about cloud hosting is that it does not require high operating IT costs that some traditional web hosting plans require. Cloud hosting allows you to access updated technology without breaking the bank. With the right service provider, you only need to pay what you use.

It is great for scaling server resources.

Proceeding with the traditional web hosting isn't a bad idea at all! If you think that a certain type of web hosting is good enough for you then by all means-- go for it! Some types of web hosting offer some flexibility for possible business growth like managed web hosting services. You will have to go through some extra steps, but some service providers make it easy for their clients.

Even if you have your eyes set on a certain type of traditional web hosting service, it won't hurt to learn more about how cloud hosting makes scaling your server resources easy as 123. Cloud hosting grants you access to your server through a site management dashboard which allows you to scale your server resources easily.

It has a redundant server environment.

Most traditional web hosting works with a single server which means that if that server fails, then your website will go offline with it. That single server needs to be fixed before you can get back online. Cloud hosting has redundant site backups that will take over the damaged server. We are a fan of this kind of redundancy as well. Cloud hosting is a good choice if you want to make sure that your data will always be recoverable.

You will experience high uptime.

Cloud hosting can give you the highest uptime possible which is 99.9%, any more than that is too good to be true. Traditional hosting uptime often depends on the web hosts facilities, machines and general server environment.

As mentioned previously the cloud consists of a network of servers which means that you are virtually using multiple servers-- this allows one server to take over in case another one goes offline.

Setup is quick and easy.

If you need your website to go online right away, then cloud hosting is clearly the right choice. Traditional web hosting, especially shared hosting, takes some time before going online while you can deploy a cloud hosting quick and easy.

You can kiss server hardware issues goodbye.

One of the most common reasons for website downtime is technical server issues or physical server problems. If you proceed with cloud services for your web hosting, then your website is safe from any physical server problems. The fact that cloud hosting involves multiple servers in the same network cannot be emphasised enough. If one server has an issue, another server will take over with virtually no downtime.

Experience faster website speed and better performance.

Remember the SEO efforts for better SERP ranking we were talking about earlier? Well, your speed site and performance affects that. Search engines determine whether your content is relevant to users. One of the factors that can make or break your ranking is your loading speed. If your web hosting is not a good match with your website, it will slow down your loading time. People are impatient beings and the faster they leave your website, the less relevant search engines think your page is to users.

The Final Say

Whether you are a newbie in the industry, a business owner trying to understand what happens behind the curtains in web development, or a business owner trying to decide on the right web hosting plan-- hopefully, this article has been informational.

Cloud hosting has many benefits that business owners will enjoy once their website is up and running. Consider your long-term goals when deciding your web hosting. If you're looking for a reliable web host, you can check out our web hosting solution.