Cloud Servers- The Myths and Facts

The Cloud still comes shrouded in mystery and confusion and regardless of how often the word is mentioned it still causes people to wonder what it actually is. There are many ways in which cloud can be described but it is essentially hosting data on the internet.

Cloud servers are powerful environments stored virtually but they are held within a number of servers known as a cluster. Cloud servers come with a number of benefits that dedicated servers cannot offer which is why more people are deciding to make the switch.

Benefits of Cloud Servers

Cloud servers come with extra flexibility and scalability which means that if you require more resources you can log in and alter this through the control panel without the need for any downtime. A dedicated server would have to upgradeable for this to occur which would involve downtime. On a Cloud serve the upgrade happens instantly and adding something such as extra RAM can be achieved in minutes.

Everyone wants reliability and Cloud servers offer just that. It is common for dedicated servers to suffer hardware failures which means that it would have to be removed from the rack and either be repaired or replaced which could mean some serious downtime. If a Cloud server experiences a hardware failure other servers would make up the shortfall and compensate for this with no downtime.

Dedicated servers take time to setup, in fact, they take more time than cloud servers. A dedicated server has to be manually setup which can take hours but a cloud server is virtual which means it can be implemented in minutes.

Using Cloud servers comes with a number of cost benefits. It is cheaper in most cases but for the same price of a dedicated server it is possible to get almost five time more power. This is down to the technology used and computing power has moved forward considerably. The CPU resources that are allocated on a cloud server are more powerful and cannot be compared to the performance of a dedicated server.

The Myths and Facts

Cloud is not here to stay- This is not true because although the term is new the technology has been around for quite some time. The internet itself is a form of cloud computing and the predictions show that more and more businesses will opt to use this technology in the future.

A lack of security-  If the provider is using cheaper software then there could be security issues. A Public cloud is used by other users and this can lead to lower security so it does come down to who you use when it comes to hosting. On the whole, security is excellent and as technology evolves it will become more and more secure.

The Cloud is too complicated – In reality, there is no difference between the complexities of a dedicated server or Cloud Servers. In fact, Cloud Servers are a lot simpler when it comes to setup when compared to dedicated servers because a cloud server can be provisioned instantly. The portal handles all the work and once setup is complete all account information is provided.

Cloud hosting requires a code-rewrite – There are some hosting providers that have intricate platforms built in that do require your code to be changed for it to work efficiently on the cloud. However, many cloud servers are now built like dedicated servers and now allow code  and websites to be uploaded as efficiently as it would to upload it using any other type of service making the cloud just as appealing.