Benefits and Drawbacks of Cloud Hosting
Why the need to study and compare cloud hosting benefits and drawbacks?
Just like any other hosting platforms, cloud hosting has its inherent characteristics and advantages as well as drawbacks and disadvantages. Before you take the step to decide whether to shift from the traditional web server hosting to cloud hosting, you should be fully aware of the benefits that cloud hosting offers as well as well as the platform’s drawbacks. This should help you make an intelligent decision regarding the type of web host that is well suited to the needs of your website
What benefits can cloud hosting offer you?
One notable benefit of cloud hosting is its SCALABILITY, meaning its ability to be scaled up or down to handle the server load at any given moment. You need not worry about your website going down due to server crashes since there are always other servers ready to pick the slack anytime it is needed. Another notable benefit of cloud hosting is the EASE IN MANAGING your website with the use of its centralized management of network services. This makes things easy to manage and assures a smooth, errorless operation without compromising the quality.
Another notable benefit of cloud hosting is its COST EFFICIENCY. Cloud hosting services bills you only for what you actually used. This means there are no monthly rentals and that you are only billed according to the amount and volume of traffic you received and of the amount of resources you have utilized. This is so beneficial to web sites that constantly experience a variable and fluctuating traffic since you need not dig money from your pockets during the time your website received no traffic.
What are the advantages of cloud hosting?
Cloud hosting brings you the following:
- The highest level of website performance which is guaranteed by not just one machine but by multiple machines;
- You are guaranteed of more server resources and unlimited storage, including more computing power and more RAM, ensuring you greater speed and power;
- As a lot of computers act as one system, you will be assured of a redundant data storage;
- There is no single point of failure;
- Easier Data backup and recovery;
- More flexibility for your website to grow;
- You can customize the size of your storage;
- Cost efficiency which means it operates at a lower cost compared to other hosting solutions; and
- A round-the-clock 24/7 support
What drawbacks can you expect when you use cloud host?
In spite of the benefits and advantages that you can reap from cloud hosting, you need to be aware of some of its drawbacks, risks, issues and disadvantages. These involves, among others:
- Technical issues and possible downtime – although it is true that data and information stored in the cloud can be accessed anytime and anywhere, it should be noted that technology is often subjected to outages and other technical issues;
- Serious Security Risk – Since you surrender your sensitive information to a cloud service provider, you could be putting your company at a serious security risk;
- Prone to Attacks – Nothing in the internet is completely secure and storing all your information on a cloud puts your company at risk and prone to hacking attacks;
- Lesser Services – before you make a leap, make sure that your cloud host provides for the same services offered by the traditional hosts.
While cloud hosting can be a big asset to your company if used properly, it can also put your company at risk or even bring it harm if it is misunderstood and used improperly.