Has Cloud Hosting Gone Mainstream?

A couple of years ago, if you wanted to set up cloud hosting for your small business or enterprise, then you were limited in the number of service providers you could choose from. In fact, you had to go to a special hosting company and receive your cloud hosting plan from a company that specialized in cloud hosting. Traditional Web hosting companies didn’t offer that service.

Today, I’m seeing more and more traditional Web hosting companies offering cloud services. But should you use them?

I think that traditional Web hosting companies offering cloud hosting services is evidence that cloud hosting has moved into the mainstream. However, I would not encourage you to use the traditional hosts for cloud hosting services. There are a number of reasons.

• First, the fact that the traditional Web host offers the service doesn’t mean it’s a valuable service. It doesn’t mean it isn’t, either. Ask lots of questions and compare their plans to the plans of cloud hosting companies.
• Find out if the traditional Web host is using the same servers for its traditional plans as it is for its cloud hosting plans. Just because they call it cloud hosting doesn’t make it cloud hosting.
• Are they using virtual servers or dedicated servers? Ask the question.
• Traditional Web hosts may have their cloud servers in the same datacenter as their traditional cheap hosting servers. You’ll never get the same level of service that you would get from a cloud hosting specialist.

There are a ton of questions you should ask of any host before you decide to use their services. This is especially true of cloud hosting, and doubly true of traditional Web hosts offering cloud hosting services.

It’s Going To Be A Cloud-Based Christmas

Tomorrow is Christmas Day and I wanted to take this time to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas. But before I sign off for the holidays, let me just leave you one last word about the Cloud.

If you get a little extra time this weekend, consider how you will run your business next year. If you don’t make any changes to your hosting plan you will likely be where you are right now at this same time next year. But will your competitors progress? They likely will.

Cloud-based computing and cloud hosting environments are becoming more and more popular every day. It’s something you should consider for your business too.

Take the next week to explore your server usage. How many servers do you have in operation and how much of the available server space are you using? Furthermore, what is it being used for? After determining your current usage, try to segment you servers into specific functions or activities. For instance, if you have five servers and a portion of each one is used for application hosting, figure out how much space you’d need for those applications. Less than a full server?

If you segment your server needs this way, you might find that you can rent only the server space you need to host the data that you need hosted and save yourself a ton of money in the long run. It’s worth a look, don’t you think?

Server Security With Every Version Of Software

One very definite challenge to server security is with software updates. Cloud-based software has the unique ability to show a new version of software when each page is updated. So imagine that you have a page that has been updated a hundred times and you have several versions of that software sitting out there on your server. Each of those are a separate security risk.

How does that change the security of your server? Well, it obviously makes you more vulnerable.

But, can you fix it?

You can, but it is challenging. You have to look at cloud server security as a component of its own rather than as a component of your server configuration. With that in mind you should look at each server in light of the following three principles.

1. Elasticity – Each server needs to be elastic enough that you can have the same level of security as you scale up and down, but you should also have the same level of security as you maneuver horizontally. Scalability and flexibility are only benefits if you have security to back them up.
2. Programmable – You have to have the ability to program security for each application and each software package on the server as opposed to expecting one level of security for the entire server to protect everything on that server.
3. Adaptive – Not only should you expect server security to match scalability and flexibility protocols as well as be programmable for each software and application package, but you should also be able to configure security for each user level. If you have server work groups that allow for security configuration per work group then you can allow each user and management representative in your company to do the work they need to do on the server and keep it secure.

Cloud computing has its challenges, especially where security is concerned, but they can be overcome.

Hosting Your WordPress Blog In The Cloud

You may be tempted to host your WordPress blog through one of the cheap shared hosting companies that exist on the Web, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Not if you are hosting your other websites in the cloud. There is no reason why you can’t host your blog on the same servers as the rest of your websites. But you should take a look at two software platforms that are essential for running your WordPress blog.

• Apache – Apache HTTP Server is the name of an open source web server software that is easy to implement, flexible, scalable and plays well with other platforms and systems like WordPress. In fact, it’s so popular that most Web hosting companies, including the cheap shared hosting companies, use it. Apache is good for static web pages, dynamic web pages and web applications. Its flexibility and ability to play well with other essential software platforms makes it desirable for any number of computing environments.
• PHP – PHP is another free open source software that is necessary for running a WordPress blog. Designed as a way to parse dynamic web pages as early as 1995, PHP has become the primary scripting language for much of WordPress, including plugins, add ons and premium themes and skins. You cannot really run a WordPress blog without PHP.

With these two open source software applications on your web server you can run your WordPress blog and make it compatible with your other websites. No need to sign up for a cheap web host if you’re already hosting in the cloud.

Customized Application Hosting

The beautiful thing about cloud hosting is its flexibility. If you have web applications that require specific hosting requirements then cloud hosting is your best option. The problem with shared hosting is that server configuration is often a one-size-fits-all model. That is, it works because everyone on the server gets the same configuration.

In fact, typical server configuration is done per server. You can’t get a customized configuration unless you pay for a dedicated server. But why do that if you need an entire server? Pay only for the server you need.

There are two aspects of web application that cloud hosting can solve. The first one is server configuration. The second one is server size, or server space. For instance, if you have a web application that requires more CPU or memory than a shared hosting provider can give you then you’ll either have to pay for a dedicated server or pay for cloud hosting. Cloud hosting can often be cheaper.

When it comes to application hosting, the best option many times is cloud hosting – and for more than one reason.