The popularity of cloud hosting has been increasing steadily in the past few years. Read this article to get to know the specifics of managing a cloud server!
If you host your site on a cloud server, you’ll either need to manage this server yourself or pay a bit more to the provider so that it takes care of this task. To make a rational choice, you should understand what it means to manage a cloud server. In this article, we’ll try to explain this by comparing cloud servers to their shared counterparts. Such an approach should seem comprehensive even to users with the most basic level of technical expertise.
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What Is Shared Server Management?
If you host your site on a shared server, several other sites will be hosted on it too. That’s the most popular and the most budget-friendly hosting option. Your site and all the other sites on your server will be drawing from the same pool of resources, such as databases, disk space, and bandwidth. If one of these sites faces a sudden spike in traffic, it will need more resources. It might take your bandwidth and your site might go down for a while. Shared hosting is good for sites that are not too popular yet. As soon as your business begins to scale, you might want to think about managed cloud servers.
What Is Cloud Server Management?
Unlike shared hosting, it’s not a one-box solution. In cloud format, your site might be spread across various synchronized servers. If one of these servers begins to malfunction, your site will be working normally nevertheless thanks to the flexibility of the cloud technology. Cloud hosting costs more than its shared counterpart but is faster and can efficiently deal with spikes in traffic.
Three Primary Factors to Pay Attention to When Choosing a Hosting Provider
No matter whether you opt for shared or cloud hosting, you should focus on the following key parameters.
Uptime
A shared hosting provider might promise you an uptime of up to 99.00-99.99%. But as you already know, your actual uptime might be lower if neighboring sites take too many of your resources. With cloud hosting, an uptime of 99.00-99.99% seems more realistic. That should be an optimal solution for businesses that are planning to grow.
Expansion
When you buy a shared hosting plan, there will be limits on the number of resources that you can consume. If you exceed these limits, the provider might suspend your account, which means your site won’t be available to customers. Sites hosted on cloud servers can expand without any limits. You can purchase precisely the amount of resources that you need, without paying too much or buying features that you would hardly use.
Bonuses
Cloud server providers rarely offer bonuses to their clients. You buy an opportunity to host your site with the help of easily scalable technology and that’s it. Shared hosting providers might allow you to use a website builder, a domain name or web transfer for free. These additional services enable them to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Shared Hosting or Cloud Hosting: Which Is Better?
Let’s compare these two types of hosting by the most vital criteria to illustrate the difference between them.
Security
The security of shared hosting relies on databases and applications. If hackers find a way to reach just one site on a shared server, they will be able to attack all the neighboring sites too. Plus, thanks to such an attack, they will create a back door that they’ll be able to use to come back later. To better protect your web resource on a shared server, you might want to install well-established antivirus software on your computer and disable any unnecessary options on your PHP settings. Besides, you should invent complex passwords and keep your control panel password separately from files on your account.
Cloud hosting architecture features the following types of security controls:
- Deterrent
- Preventative
- Detective
- Corrective
Your site will be much better protected from any malicious activities. Encryption algorithms will ensure excellent data confidentiality, data access control, and data integrity. In an extreme situation, you’ll be able to move your website to another server.
Performance
The resources that you can use on a shared server will be always limited. This problem is typical even of custom-built servers and SSD servers. You won’t be able to benefit from the maximum possible speed. You should be ready to cope with constant downtimes and outages.
Cloud hosting will give you access to an ultra-fast, auto-scalable, and customizable platform. Your site won’t slow down or suffer from overload even if there is a considerable spike in traffic. know more about managed cpanel hosting
Speed
Shared hosting servers are almost always full to capacity. The higher the traffic on your neighboring websites, the longer your site will load and the slower it will work. Only when the issue is resolved, your site will be able to resume its normal online presence.
The speed of cloud hosting services is always high because they rely on distributed resources. If you ever face a hardware issue, you simply migrate your site. It’s much harder to hit a moving target than a static one.
Pricing
As we’ve already mentioned, shared hosting is typically the most affordable option. You share not only resources with your neighboring sites but the costs as well. To cut down expenses, even more, you might want to pay for the full year ahead.
With cloud hosting, you’ll need to pay only for those resources that you need. To reduce your expenses, you might want to optimize your infrastructure. The fewer apps you use, the less you pay.
Final Thought
Hopefully, you found this article informative and now you better understand the specifics of cloud server hosting management, compared to managing a shared server. Cloud hosting gives you access to an unlimited amount of resources. You’ll need to pay only for those features that you use and you’ll be able to scale easily. Your site should effortlessly cope with any sudden spike in traffic and will enjoy a higher level of security. You’ll be able to manage it yourself or ask your provider to do it.
