Cloud Hosting: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It’s Quickly Replacing Traditio...

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Web hosting has long relied on physical servers - dedicated hardware that stores and runs website files. Quite often, larger companies would actually have their own servers on-site.

While this would ensure greater control over their website (and usually result in better performance), the resulting IT effort was often quite extensive. Hardware issues and other problems could lead to significant slowdowns and even extensive downtime.

Even when a website is hosted on a server located in a data center, there's no guarantee that the website will always be able to operate at peak efficiency. In traditional web hosting, multiple websites typically share the resources of a single server at a data center, and when traffic gets too heavy at one or more of the websites on the server, the performance of all of them can suffer during periods of high demand.

Enter cloud hosting - an increasingly popular (and viable) solution that is quickly supplanting traditional web hosting for many businesses. This subset of cloud computing offers several noteworthy advantages that are well worth considering.

What Is Cloud Hosting, and How Does it Work?

Cloud hosting is a type of IaaS (infrastructure as a service) in which a website is hosted via a network of real and virtual servers. Rather than hosting a website on a single server, the data is shared through a distributed server network, generally comprising multiple data centers. These interconnected servers allow the data of the websites that use the server network to be allocated dynamically based on demand.

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Most notably, cloud hosting utilizes what is known as virtualization, in which virtual machines (VMs) are created on the hosting provider's physical servers. The network's memory, storage, and network bandwidth are distributed to the VMs from a shared pool. Extra resources can be delivered from the pool to ensure consistent performance of each VM during traffic spikes.

While the overall pool of resources is shared, resource isolation protocols cause each VM to run separately and independently so they won't interfere with each other's performance or create compatibility problems. Data is replicated across multiple servers to create redundancy, while load balancing enables cloud hosting providers to distribute requests across multiple servers during periods of high demand.

With this setup, the cloud hosting solution is designed to always automatically direct users to the server within the network that has the most availability, ensuring consistent performance and uptime.

Why Cloud Hosting Is Replacing Traditional Web Hosting

As with other cloud computing solutions, cloud hosting offers several inherent advantages that have made it increasingly attractive to businesses of all sizes. These advantages are part of why 41.4% of businesses increased their investments in cloud-based services in 2023 - with many opting to migrate on-premises workloads to the cloud.

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Now, let's unpack the top reasons why cloud hosting is replacing traditional web hosting.

1. Scalability and Flexibility

One of the chief advantages of cloud hosting is the level of scalability and flexibility that it enables. Because the load is spread across a broad network, the resources dedicated to a particular website can be scaled up or down as needed based on the amount of traffic going to it at a given time.

While the level of traffic that a website will support may be limited based on its hosting plan, these plans generally offer a more flexible approach that allows businesses to increase their bandwidth when needed (such as by switching to a plan that has more available bandwidth). Server setup and bandwidth allocation happen almost immediately, giving the business instant access to the higher bandwidth it needs.

With cloud hosting, the business itself does not need to worry about manually upgrading its hosting hardware. The load is distributed across the network in a way that allows for bandwidth upgrades to be enacted almost immediately.

2. Better Security

Cloud hosting also generally offers a stronger security profile than traditional web hosting. The CNAPP (cloud-native application protection platform) model integrates cloud security posture management, cloud service network security and cloud workload protection platforms to provide a comprehensive level of protection for both public and private clouds, as well as on-premises servers.

By integrating end-to-end cloud security across the entire network, cloud hosting providers are positioned to implement key security functions crucial to effective web hosting, such as next-generation firewalls, load balancers, and DoS (denial of service) protection. Cloud hosting providers consistently update and invest in these security frameworks to protect their clients. Such efforts reduce the risk of downtime and other challenges linked to successful attacks.

In addition to these security frameworks, cloud hosting providers often provide data backup and recovery services to further mitigate risk for companies using their hosting services. This setup makes security incidents less likely in the first place and ensures that businesses can get back up and running quickly if a security issue occurs.

3. Improved Uptime

One of the most common pitfalls of traditional web hosting is the risk of downtime. Website downtime can be extremely costly for any business. Forbes reports that large organizations may experience losses of up to $9,000 per minute due to downtime - and in some cases, even greater than $5 million per hour. Unplanned downtime can drive away prospective customers and create frustrations for existing customers. Extended outages could even harm your business' reputation.

Because of this, improved uptime through cloud hosting cannot be overlooked. Traditional hosting is more prone to downtime if the server, networking equipment, or even power supplies malfunction. Downtime can also result from software bugs, compatibility issues, malware attacks, and so on.

Cloud hosting aims to directly counter these risks by using a broadly dispersed server network. When one server fails, website traffic is automatically routed to others within the network without any discernible difference for the end user. Servers that are geographically dispersed further reduce the risk of downtime associated with severe weather or other events. This also creates data redundancy, making it easier to recover from a disaster.

4. Better Website Performance

Cloud hosting helps ensure consistent, high-quality website performance at all times, regardless of the amount of traffic the site is experiencing. One of the most common reasons why a website might perform poorly is when a website experiences a surge in visitors (such as during a major sales event).

This can be problematic for businesses, as the connection between page speed and bounce rate has been well-documented for quite some time. A website's bounce rate increases by 32% when the load time increases from one second to three seconds. Once the load time has increased to six seconds, the bounce rate increases by 106%.

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Traditional web hosting can be especially prone to this type of inefficient performance when a server doesn't have sufficient CPU, RAM or storage to handle increased traffic, or if it lacks sufficient internet connectivity. Even when the website isn't down, delays can hurt the business's bottom line.

With cloud hosting, the load is automatically distributed across multiple servers during times of high traffic so the website can continue to function normally. Users won't be able to tell the difference, even during times of heavy traffic.

5. A More Cost-Efficient Solution

Finally, cloud hosting delivers a more cost-efficient solution for the businesses that use it. Larger organizations that use their own private server can incur heavy costs for installing and setting up the servers - not to mention the ongoing cost of maintenance and installing upgrades. Over time, the business will likely also need to pay to repair and eventually replace the equipment.

With traditional hosting, businesses tend to be locked into more rigid plans that charge the same amount, regardless of whether they use all of the resources available through their server.

Cloud hosting can be more cost-efficient than both of these options, as it typically offers a pay-as-you-go model. This more flexible approach to web hosting means that businesses will often only pay for the resources they use on a monthly basis, and they can change their plans as needed.

At the same time, the business does not need to worry about the ongoing costs of obtaining and maintaining server hardware. Such savings can enable the business to direct its IT budget to other areas that improve its operations.

Cloud hosting offers several inherent advantages that have made it an extremely worthwhile solution in today's business environment. By taking advantage of this cloud-based technology, companies can ensure that their hosting solution provides the scalability, flexibility and reliable performance necessary to better serve the needs of their target audience.

Cloud Hosting: The Future (and Present) of Web Hosting

Cloud hosting is more than just a buzzword - it's a shift in how businesses serve their websites to their audiences and approach their online presence. With enhanced scalability, security, and performance, all at a relatively affordable price, just about any online business should consider cloud hosting options to reduce pain points for both them and their customers.

Ultimately, businesses that embrace this evolution are more prepared to meet the demands of their audience, attract leads and customers, and ultimately grow better.

Topics: Web Hosting

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