[fcolor]

"Cloud" was the most used buzzword in the IT hosting industry in 2013. Most ISVs and web hosts reps used that one in their offerings regardless their current infrastructure setups. I believe that when it comes to software, most people understand that Cloud refers to a subscription based licensing service, instead of paying one time fee to obtain a software license. I have a clear understanding what does "Cloud" mean in any niche of the industry (Virtual Hosting, VES/VDS, Bare metal provisioning, etc.) However I'm not sure what most consumers (and others involved in Internet industry) understand when a web hosting provider uses term "Cloud"? I'd be glad to see your opinions here.

[Gaiacom_LC]

To me, the fundamental difference is between distributed/redundant infrastructure and 'traditional' node-based infrastructure.

For example, web hosting accounts hosted on a single, physical host, are not hosted "in the cloud". A lot of web hosts and other companies are claiming all kinds of things about 'the cloud' while they have not yet moved very far away from the traditional hosting model.

[fcolor]

Originally Posted by mrenish

The principles of cloud computing are similar to shared hosting, but with one major innovation: hardware virtualization. The introduction of virtualization several years ago has lead to the rapid growth of cloud hosting today.

Cloud computing has nothing to do with "Shared Hosting". "Virtual Hosting" should not be confused with "Virtual Environments". Virtualization has been around for "ages", not for "several years"… and finally based on this "article", you'd better not do promotional posting in favor of any particular web host. It is cheap!

[digidrive]

Don't waste your time any longer. With advanced features like live demos and performance comparisons, you can build your website faster than you think.

[Crook-sam]

Read through the plan you have selected and write down on a piece of paper what they are offering you. Do you understand everything? If not find out what it means because you don’t want to sign up for 1 year and then figure out that there is a difference between addon domains and parked domains.

[King-Servers]

Cloud hosting is definitely the future of web hosting. Many providers use Cloud term for their VPS built using virtualization software that allows to increase/decrease server resources, which I think is kind of misleading. They should promote them as Cloud VPS and not cloud hosting because cloud hosting is a private cloud set up that includes cluster of servers to deliver 100% uptime.

[Mavls&Rob]

Choosing the right kind of web hosting service can be a very daunting task at times as there are some very important Personal or ecommerce web hosting features that you need to make sure of.