Cloud hosting can manifest itself in two different forms depending on the web hosting provider that you choose to use – firstly there is public cloud hosting which is the main type of cloud hosting offered by a good majority of web hosting companies, secondly there is private cloud hosting which is aimed at larger businesses as it provides them with their own cluster of cloud servers that they can then use to create virtual machines as they wish with virtually no limitations.
Public cloud web hosting services are able to provide benefits that will be more than suitable for your average power user or small business, with resources on tap and an auto-scaling feature, which will guarantee that your web applications will always have the resources that they need.
Private clouds on the other hand have been designed with larger businesses in mind; with every private cloud a business is given control of a cluster of servers that form their cloud and from here they can create as many virtual machines as they require – if they find themselves running out of particular resources then it shouldn’t be too much of an issue to add extra capacity in the form of more nodes.
Cloud hosting services will be able to offer you a level of reliability not available with any other form of web hosting regardless of whether you go private or public; even though cloud hosting does carry at premium in most cases, this extra cost is made up for through the extra income that will be made from having a website that is always accessible as downtime often means that businesses are losing money through lost advertising revenues or potential customers placing their orders elsewhere.
- What are the benefits of using the public cloud?
A public cloud hosting solution can provide you with the following benefits over private cloud hosting solutions:- Cost
Public cloud solutions are best suited for smaller businesses and web developers that have a budget to stick to because the design of public cloud solutions ensures that users of cloud virtual machines here are able to keep tabs on the resources that they are using and the amount that they are paying for their virtual machines – the idea of cloud VM hosting is to offer a more effective method of virtual machine hosting when compared to VPS server hosting whilst also rivaling dedicated server hosting with the resources that can be provided with a single virtual machine – with the public cloud the resources of the clustered servers are shared by many users, therefore allowing web hosting companies to offer relatively cheap public cloud hosting services without having to compromise on the quality of the product offered, furthermore the discounts that can be had by web hosting providers purchasing hardware in bulk will also be passed on to the consumer to ensure that public cloud hosting represents good value for money. - Management
When using a public cloud hosting service, the management and servicing of the cloud is taken care of by your web hosting company so that any issues that have the potential to cause downtime can be spotted and dealt with immediately to reduce any potential performance impact – furthermore, you will also be provided with a web-based control panel through which you can manage certain aspects of your virtual machines including the state of them (so you can reboot a VM if necessary), create new virtual machines and order additional resources for your existing virtual machines if the demand from your website is steadily increasing. - Support
With a public cloud hosting service you can expect your web hosting provider to offer you full support at every step along the way so that you are able to setup your cloud virtual machines to work in the way you want them to as even if you don’t have the experience or knowledge that would allow you to do this yourself, the support team will provide you with the advice and assistance necessary to fulfill your requirements – any good web hosting company will be able to provide 24×7 support so that your issues and queries will be dealt with in a timely manner, regardless of the method of contact that you use.
- Cost
- What are the benefits of using the private cloud?
Private cloud plans are designed for larger businesses with the following benefit intended for the target audience:- Additional security
A private cloud will be able to provide you with a higher level of security when compared to a public cloud solution because you will be using your own cluster of cloud services that won’t be shared with anyone else, therefore meaning that the only communications being sent around the cloud will be related to your data – you will also retain full control of the cloud servers if you wish to do so to ensure that you can secure them to a standard that meets your business’s own guidelines as this is a good way of providing your customers with the reassurance that their data is being handled efficiently and stored securely. - Flexibility
A private cloud will provide you with the flexibility to create additional virtual machines for your business’s needs as and when you wish with each VM being provisioned immediately based upon the resources that you have specified – with a private cloud it is highly unlikely that you’ll ever run out of resources because of the level of scalability that is offered by a pool of servers, but if you do find your cloud running out of certain resources then additional servers can be added without too much hassle so that you can create new VMs or scale your existing VMs to meet demand. - Expansion
Private clouds allow businesses to rapidly expand their infrastructure through the immediate provisioning of virtual machines because once the VM has been setup, it can then be configured to carry out its assigned task – if a business needs to expand further then the private cloud can be added to so that capacity can be increased if absolutely necessary.
- Additional security
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