Advantages Of Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is the future and is one of the flashiest evolutions experienced in the field of technology. Right from the companies to the users’ everybody relies on the cloud directly or indirectly. Cloud hosting plays a pivotal role in helping businesses leverage the digital space effectively and efficiently.

Cloud hosting is referred to as a kind of web hosting that employs multiple servers to balance the load and maximize performance. Instead of a single server, cloud hosting provides a network of connected virtual and physical servers from a centralized pool. Thus, even if one server fails another kick in instantly, thereby retaining applications always up and stable. This ensures scalability and flexibility and also permits users to have the agilities for optimized performance.

Server Virtualization is one of the key features of cloud hosting that renders numerous benefits to the users or applications. In this method, the physical servers are partitioned into multiple virtual servers. In other words, server virtualization in cloud hosting can be referred to as the masking of server resources.

Reduced Hardware Costs:

Storing data in the cloud greatly helps to minimize the operational costs. Server Virtualization improves hardware utilization and permits the usage of resources in an efficient manner. With server virtualization, a single physical server can hold multiple virtual machines. It eliminates the major cost of physical hardware as the host applications no longer require an individual server. This also stringently reduces electricity, wastage and maintenance costs. As per IDC reports, server virtualization reported a 40% reduction in hardware, software expenses for IT businesses.

Virtualization also helps to drastically reduce the physical space requirement required for hosting the physical hardware. This cost-effective approach is both a productivity and profitability booster.

Scalability:

Multiple business establishments require different types of IT needs. For example, a huge enterprise with 10000+ employees might not have the same needs as a start-up. Cloud Hosting provides an easy solution as it permits enterprises to easily scale up/down their IT needs as per business demands. It becomes an ideal choice for firms with increasing or fluctuating traffic demands. If the business demand increases, the cloud capacity can be enhanced eliminating the need to invest in the physical infrastructure. Scalability also reduces the risks that are linked with in-house execution and maintenance.

Quick deployment and provisioning:

Cloud hosting helps the IT employers, to become more agile and proficient at work. With Server Virtualization, provisioning and deployment become an easy process. It allows replication of existing virtual machines without the time and money spent on installing a new physical server. It reduces the time, space and cost required to purchase the racks and cables to accommodate the growing number of physical servers. It supports the IT team, to crack technical issues in the physical systems. As any required data is always readily available in the cloud, technicians need not spend time locating the data from corrupted devices.

Flexibility on-demand:

Cloud hosting facilitates the consumer with the flexibility of scaling up the storage, computation power and related infrastructure anytime. This further helps to crash the cost on the infrastructure for various purposes. As an example, an organization that needs management dashboards prepared overnight every day would require infrastructure resources for a finite period like 2hours or so. Cloud gives the flexibility of creating such on-demand clusters, where charging can also be flexible in terms of storage, computation capacity and data transfer needs.

High Computation Capabilities:

The computation capacity requirements have increased leaps and bounds with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). CPUs or not even GPUs can satisfy these core processing requirements. Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) are available over the cloud to process such rich volume and high computation requirements of deep learning AI like Convoluted Neural Networks (CNN)

Disaster Recovery:

Data loss is a growing concern that threatens the IT world. Storing data in the cloud ensures that it remains safe and protected even if the personal laptops or PCs become damaged. Storing data in the cloud enables access to any crucial data from another device in case of a system crash. In cloud hosting, there are normally two different servers executing side-by-side and even if one of them fails, the other server remains always accessible.

Even if it is a power outage or natural disasters cloud-based services provide faster disaster recovery during any sort of emergencies. Any data can be virtually moved from physical storage to a server and vice-versa rapidly and safely. This eliminates the need to dig data from drives and thus saves the workload and time of administrators. Virtualization is really effective in cases where data needs to be transferred to large distances. Cloud hosting has a provision for obtaining a virtual disk space. If space requirement is less, the cloud allows the selection of a thin-provisioned virtual disk.

Backing up of critical data can be performed swiftly as firms can effortlessly create a replication site. This process consumes less time with minimum downtime. Most of the virtualization platforms contain software that allows you to automate any failover that happens during a disaster. It also permits the testing of the disaster recovery failover process. In the event of a disaster, the infrastructure is properly set to undertake rapid and safe recovery which is unimaginable with the array of physical servers. Data can be stored anywhere and also retrieved easily.

Firewall and Security:

Data security is highly crucial for any IT organization and cannot be taken for granted. With Cloud hosting, data is protected by a virtual switch that safeguards all data and applications for virus attack, malware or any other cyber threats. The firewall feature allows the creation of segments within the system. This type of segmentation eliminates all sorts of risks of data getting corrupted or lost. In cloud computing encryption using high-end protocols are employed to protect any data. The use of virtual firewalls comes at a lower cost when compared with normal traditional methods. So, it is always a good practice to virtualize any storage and create a backup on the server that can be hosted in the cloud environment.

AWS, one of the major cloud service providers is PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliant. PCI DSS ensures that a highly secure environment is maintained for storing, processing and transmission of data.

Significant Energy cost savings:

Another crucial server virtualization benefits are that the migration of physical servers to virtual machines enables consolidation of the servers onto fewer physical servers. This significantly reduces cooling and power costs. One added advantage is the capability to power down the servers without causing trouble to applications or users.

High Uptime and Availability:

In traditional hosting methods, any application’s availability or uptime depends upon the physical environment. If the server fails, the application automatically goes down. In Cloud hosting high uptime is embedded into its architecture. As the application virtually makes use of multiple virtual servers, the application website automatically gets shifted from a server to another if one goes offline. Also, the ability to scale resources as per requirement ensures that the application always remains online even if there exists an unexpected traffic surge.

Safety from server hardware issues:

With Cloud hosting, any application gets protected from regular physical issues such as hardware troubles, hacking or system overload. With multiple virtual servers, even if one physical server is compromised the physical resources of other servers can be utilized without experiencing any downtime.

Simple Server Management Dashboard:

In the past cloud server management required technical expertise to manage and scale the servers effectively as per need. But, now with the availability of an intuitive dashboard, a technical background is not a criterion to execute cloud server.

Increased Productivity:

Cloud servers provide blazing speed for your applications. Apart from effortlessly enhancing the website’s capacity, cloud hosting also permits easier load balancing between multiple server environments. This ensures that no single server is overly strained. With no or fewer physical servers, maintenance and management become simple. As provisioning of applications requires just minutes, it enhances productivity as the IT can now focus on more productive tasks and in raising revenue. This helps organizations to focus on core areas rather than spending the efforts/ investment on the support IT activities/ resources.

Mobility:

Cloud hosting also permits mobile access to corporate data. This can be achieved through smartphones and other related devices. With this feature, users can always be up-to-date and in sync with clients and co-workers. Cloud resources can be stored, processed, retrieved with just a few clicks. Users can access their data 24/7 using their smart devices across the globe with internet connectivity. Also, upgrades and updates are performed automatically, off-sight by the service providers. This minimizes the time and effort in maintaining the systems, thereby drastically reducing the IT team workloads.

In the data speed regime in terms of mobile or fixed broadband connectivity, internet speeds and prices have really become a matter of commodity. Hence, the cost vs benefit analysis of cloud hosting reaps rich dividends.

Control:

Access and control over any sensitive data is crucial for the growth of any company. Storing data in the cloud ensures complete visibility and control over any data. Control of data and the level of access to data among different users can be easily decided. Apart from gaining control, it also permits proper streamlining of work across the employers. It makes collaboration a hassle-free process as one version of any document can be accessed by multiple users and it eliminates the need for document copies and circulation.

Reduction in the overall environmental impact:

With cloud hosting, fewer data centres and also minimum resources that are actually required for the moment are utilized. Thus by streaming the data, space and resources cloud hosting helps to create a minimum impact on the environment.

Options for Cloud Hosting:

Public Cloud:

Virtual server in a public cloud can be built, scaled and shut almost instantly. Public Cloud can be scaled as per the needs and is the best choice for ISVs with rapidly changing demands. As the underlying physical structures are shared and the capability to optimally size virtual servers based on computational power, memory, storage public cloud services can be implemented at a much lesser cost than a private cloud. The pay-as-you-go flexibility with no capital outlay is also one of the key features of a public cloud. Public cloud services refrain the user from the responsibilities of managing, maintaining the infrastructure as well as from implementing rigorous security measures.

Private Cloud:

Private Cloud has advantages over the public cloud for certain business requirements. In addition to the robust security that public cloud hosting renders a private cloud can be isolated from all but the company who owns it. This restricted access in private cloud can be integrated with the company’s firewall and other access policies. This provides an additional layer of security. In a private cloud, the fault resilient and redundant architecture is not shared in any manner. This provides enhanced reliability when compared with dedicated hardware or public hosting service. Also, the resources in private cloud architecture are at the disposal of only the company which owns it. There is no disputation with other firms for capacity. So there is only a remote chance that a malicious attack against other firms will hamper the host company’s performance. The Private cloud provides improved flexibility in the allocation of resources and the owner also has the freedom to build and configure the private cloud in any desired way.

Hybrid Cloud:

Flexibility and Scalability can be determined based on the individual needs of the company. For example, client interaction can be made using a public cloud and data can be stored in a private cloud. It’s more secure than a public cloud as the owner has the freedom to choose which portions of IT can be placed in a public or private cloud. Hybrid cloud is the best option for companies in transition from public to private cloud.

There are advantages for each of these options. With the right choice of hosting options combined with the benefits offered such as flexibility, cost-effectiveness, etc cloud hosting is by far the best option for any business solutions.

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