The trend of cloud hosting is an increasingly popular computer term that has many uses but different interpretations. For many involved in information technology services, particularly at the enterprise level, the first step for decision makers within relevant business sectors is usually; what is cloud hosting?

What is cloud hosting? Well, at the computer science level, the question of what is cloud hosting is usually understood to be a network of computer devices that are connected are synchronized, connected, and work together as a cohesive unit to provide a number of different services. In terms of web hosting, the inital question of what is cloud hosting is specifically understood to mean that all web hosting services, such as web, ftp, mail, and the like, that are running on different services in order to ensure that a failure of compromise in one server will be isolated and will not result in a failure in all of the services.

Usually, the user, which in most cases would be the client or business participating in the cloud hosting, would not have to worry about managing the actual technology or implementing any cloud related changes to their services. User friendly by nature, the user would only need to ‘worry’ about defining how they would like to utilize the services in order to streamline their implementation and use the services on demand. With this in mind, these inital answers to the increasingly important question of what is cloud hosting would likely encourage business leaders to switch to the cloud.

Put another way, what is cloud hosting could also be followed with the answer that cloud services are the delivery of computer capacity, in particular storage capacity, to users that would like to securely and reliably host their data on a third party server. The concept of the ‘cloud’ comes from the abstract idea of the complex interaction of the infrastructure involved in the technical nuances of the actual makeup of the cloud.

Currently, more granular answers to the question of what is cloud hosting can be broken down into three areas; infrastructure as a service, software as a service, and platform as a service. Software as a service is likely the most popular of the three. When using software as a service, businesses will also rent software and database applications in order to access the data that is stored on the cloud. Additionally, the business or user is able to access the data stored on cloud via a web browser or in some cases a mobile application. The benefit of this option as opposed to traditional hosting is that the actual data is stored on a remote server, but can still be accessed via the conventional, traditional methods.

What is cloud hosting? It’s an intelligent, technologically advanced way to safely and reliably host your data on a remote third party server, while having the same level of transparency and access as you would via traditional hosting methods. These brief, top level answers to the question of what is cloud hosting should be informative enough for any interested client to take the next step in pursuing cloud services.

When we consider the clouds that sometimes cover our skies, we visualize the sky filled with many fluffy objects. During a storm or shower, the rain drops often come from a number of clouds. This creates a continuous flow of rain drops for a lengthy period of time. This period would have been much shorter if a single cloud had to operate in isolation. This kind of concept can be used to explain what is cloud hosting.

Traditionally servers worked in isolation and a single machine would be responsible for providing all the resources required to provide services to all the connected computers. In the case of a web host, the web server would be the machine that the connected computers connect to in order to view a particular web-page.

In the case of cloud hosting, the web server will be replaced by a web cloud. This would be the point at which all connecting computers will interface with the web host. To these connecting computers it would seem as if they are connecting to single web server in the usual way. In fact they will be using services provided by a whole group of computers working together in perfect synergy.

A number of separate web servers together form this imaginary cloud. They are found at a higher level and will not be accessed individually. Each of them will be assigned specific tasks. The overall result is that the workload which was usually carried by a single server is now spread between all the servers in the cloud. It leads to more effective management of resources. As a result, there will be a powerful cloud of services provided by a number of machines. Each machine will be operating well within its technical capacity and will not be over-burdened.

As we move through different periods of the day, the amount of traffic on the Internet varies considerably. This influences the amount physical volatile memory or bandwidth which is available. Peak times are often characterized by the slow speed that web-pages are able to download and viewed on connecting computers. When the supplying host is a cloud, the machines can work together to deal with the increased load. If they have been setup optimally, the end user might not even be aware of the increase traffic strain on the Internet.

When servers work in isolation, a total breakdown in functionality could be a total disaster. If there are no adequate contingency plans, this could result in a total loss in services while the web server is being tended to. In the case of cloud hosting, such a scenario is much easier to deal with. When a member of the cloud becomes dysfunctional, the other machines will be able to stand in while the affected machine is being fixed.

Cloud hosting is web hosting where a single server is replaced by a number of web servers working together. They share resources, reducing the workload on individual machines. As a result, they are able to provide a superior service when compared to individual web servers.