Cloud hosting is said to be the game-changer in hosting industry. It is touted to be the ultimate solutions for your web hosting needs, as it promises scalability, flexibility and reliability. But unfortunately, what you’ve heard or read about is just part of the story. I’ve learned about it the hard way (or ways!) and it is time to clear the mist; find the truth about cloud hosting from my first hand experience.
1. Always on? I don’t think so
Many cloud hosting providers (which I also believe them to participate in cloud washing campaigns) touted that cloud hosting is always on – when one server fails, resources are automatically allocated to the other servers in the cloud. While this looks good on paper, the truth is it’s not always like that…
I’ve seen downtime with my past two cloud hosting providers, and to say the least, the uptime percentage is below what’s promised (typically 99.99% uptime.) There are various issues: The sudden inability to communicate between servers, and bogged down server in managed cloud hosting plans (non VPS) causing your site to be slow loading, if not giving you server time out, and some other technical issues…
The bottom line, it’s not always on – at least in my case.
2. Cloud hosting SHOULD offer better reliability than non-cloud hosting
Technically speaking, cloud computing offers powerful solutions: Self healing hardware and redundancy capabilities should guarantee reliability. But in some cloud hosting solutions, that is not always the case.
In my own experience, the uptime of cloud hosting services I have tried on is (way) below what’s claimed – 99.99% uptime guarantee – even when I ignore scheduled maintenance. There are some outages due to server-side issues.
3. Not all cloud hosting offers true cloud solution – is the cloud just a marketing gimmick?
Some true cloud hosting offers pay as you go plan, as well as offering you the ability scale up and down in real time. Some others are incorporating cloud technologies on hosting plans that has existed for decades.
Regarding the latter, I’ve talked with a server admin of a web hosting provider, and he said that cloud hosting is just similar to non-cloud hosting. The main difference is the fact that it uses different technology that supposedly better. What’s worse, the cloud seems to be having hiccups – it’s not mature, yet, in my opinion – making it less stable compared to the time-tested, non-cloud hosting technologies.
So, is “cloud hosting” a marketing gimmick? To some true cloud hosting providers, it’s not; but many jump into the cloud hosting bandwagon with no expertise in cloud technologies, in such a way that when tech glitches happen, they falter… even a couple of them are either divesting or going out of business…
Okay, maybe I’m not that objective… but to back my case, check these resources:
- Cloud hosting advantages and disadvantages
- Yet another cloud hosting pros and cons
- Cloud hosting wiki
You see, I am always a big fan of cloud computing. But I hate the fact that it is being used to misled people, for the sake of riding the cloud trends. I learned the hard way, so I need to be extra careful, not to sign up with every cloud solution providers claiming they are offering “cloud-based” services; I need to do my due diligence – you should, too…
