Cloud hosting environments can be used by web hosting companies to offer more reliable shared hosting plans and so it is important to be aware of the differences between cloud hosting and standard shared web hosting. Whilst shared web hosting plans have generally been seen as being towards the cheap end of the market and targeted at beginners, cloud hosting is aimed at users of all levels through the different variations of hosting plans offered in the cloud. Web hosting companies are hoping to phase out their shared web hosting plans over time so that they can be replaced with the cloud variant, simply because this will allow them to offer a reliable service across their entire product range; although this may seem like an expensive option for the short term, as more people take up cloud hosting services, web hosting providers will be able to reduce the prices of a majority of their cloud hosting plans. The architecture of a cloud web hosting environment is pretty universal as is the architecture of a shared web hosting environment, meaning that you are likely to be provided with the same benefits and disadvantages of each form of hosting regardless of the hosting provider that you choose. For shared web hosting users there are many benefits to be had from choosing a hosting plan that is hosted in the cloud; even though for now it may mean paying slightly more, the benefits will more than likely outweigh the cost.
System Architecture
The architecture of a shared web hosting environment and a cloud environment are fundamentally different, with a shared environment being designed to host a limited number of users with limited resources whereas a cloud environment is designed to be scalable. Many shared web hosting environments are based on a single server meaning that the failure rate is quite high and the number of users that can be hosted on a single server is highly limited; this is as opposed to the cloud which has been designed to use a number of servers so that the system is scalable, with the ability to add additional servers as the need for capacity increases, therefore meaning that although not unlimited, a greater number of users can still be hosted in a cloud environment without impacting performance.
Resources Available
A cloud web hosting environment will be able to offer far greater resource allocations than a shared web hosting environment as the resources of multiple servers are pooled in a cloud environment to provide hosting providers with one large distributed bank of resources that can be used to form web hosting accounts. When choosing a shared web hosting plan that is hosted in a cloud environment, you can be guaranteed that it will be easy to add additional resources as you require because there will be a large pool from which they can be allocated; this will allow you to choose a lower-resourced plan and then add resources as your websites grows.
Reliability and Uptime
Because of the architecture of shared web hosting environments, the related web hosting plans aren’t too well known for offering reliability, as it is hard for web hosting companies to keep a single server up for such a long period of time. However, with a cloud hosting environment the number of servers used to power the cloud means that even if one of these servers does fail, it won’t be noticeable to end users and won’t have any kind of impact on the performance of your website or the uptime of the environment – it should still be possible to hit the target of 100%. As a side note you should always ensure that where 100% guaranteed uptime is offered, you are provided with an SLA (Service Level Agreement) so that you know what to expect if that uptime target isn’t met monthly.
Security
Cloud hosting has been designed to improve upon the security solutions offered by existing forms of web hosting, instead wanting to provide businesses with an environment in which they can be sure that the data of their customers can be safely hosted. Single-server shared hosting environments aren’t known for being secure because of the security measures that are implemented are often fairly lax, providing room for hackers to gain access to the server and in-turn steal any data that they feel could be of value. In a cloud environment data is transferred between the servers over secure networks that are constantly monitored; furthermore, hardware firewalls are commonplace meaning that the chance of a DDOS attack on a particular server having any sort of impact is low.
Pricing
For now you can expect cloud web hosting to be more expensive than shared hosting, but as the cost of hardware falls further and more people take up cloud hosting then you can expect cloud hosting to become the norm over shared web hosting. As a business you can make use of some of the more dynamic features of cloud hosting, such as the facility to creating your own web hosting plan based around your own specific needs as offered by some web hosting companies, to save money and stay within budget without compromising the quality of the service that you receive. Although shared web hosting is going to be the cheaper option for the time being, it is important to consider that the gap between the price of a cloud hosting plan and a shared hosting account is likely to be relatively small and so the extra cost may be worth the benefits that are available.
In conclusion, cloud web hosting has been designed to provide you with a number of different benefits over shared web hosting without hiking the price too much or providing you with a solution that is too complicated for beginners. The price of cloud web hosting is suitable for what you are getting for your money, as is the pricing for shared web hosting, but as the difference in price isn’t that big it would be worth considering cloud hosting over shared hosting because of the added benefits.
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