Where Does Cloud Hosting Fit into the Hosting Product Mix?

July 26, 2017 Off By David
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Most early users of web hosting opt for what’s known as a shared hosting plan. This type of plan provides access to a server along with many hundreds of other user accounts which share both the resources and available bandwidth of that single server. Performance is disappointing in most cases and one quickly outgrows the slow page loading times. Looking beyond shared hosting, there are a number of other hosting options that are viable for mid-size and large websites that require something more specialized.

Let’s look at the hosting choices available for SMEs.

VPS Hosting

The idea of virtual private servers is that they offer a stepping stone between shared hosting on one end and a dedicated server on the other. A single server is divided up by resources including disk space, RAM memory, CPU cores and other definable specifics to offer customers a limited amount of select hosting at an affordable price.

The benefit of VPS hosting over its shared hosting cousin is that few websites are hosted on the server which produces a faster response time. Pages are generated faster due to better processor speeds, a higher allocation of memory, and the use of solid-state drives to remove disk performance bottlenecks. Typically, one is able to choose between several VPS plans that let the customer decide how much server they really need. Root access is usually provided within the virtual machine to allow the customer to more closely control performance within their virtual server environment too.

Dedicated Server Hosting

Dedicated server hosting is another animal entirely. Rather than renting use of part of a server, a single server is assigned to the customer. Usually this is managed for the customer, but there are also self-managed options for corporations with their own team of technical staff who wish to maintain greater control.

There are several dedicated server specifications on offer with a given web host. These range from basic Intel Xeon Processors to more sophisticated ones with spec’d out SSD drives, faster networking, and multiple internet backbone connections to fall back on. Bandwidth usage is usually charged by the gigabyte.

Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting comes in many flavors, but in the web hosting environment, it is offered as a way to provide a scalable hosting environment first and foremost. Rather than sharing resources heavily, virtual machines are set up on multiple servers to provide redundancy for web servers that develop a fault. By using multiple virtual machines across several physical servers to host a single website (which would be unaffordable for many customer types who’d needed to rent two dedicated servers that are load-balanced to share traffic equally) downtime is minimized and overall performance is improved.

Best-in-Class Web Design to Compliment Power Hosting Plans

A powerful hosting plan isn’t useful without a web design firm like Parxavenue Ltd. which can provide professional, bespoke site designs to suit every business requirement. A great site hosted poorly suffers greatly from disappointing performance. Similarly, inadequate hosting plans let a site down in much the same way.

Whichever type of hosting you decide on, be sure to choose a qualified host that offers minimal downtime and great value for money. The brand behind the hosting is also worth a mention here too. You don’t want a small player that could go to the wall tomorrow. Pick a hosting company that’s been around for a few years and clearly knows what they’re doing.

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