Cloud Web Hosting vs Dedicated Web Hosting
Technology has in recent years brought data stored in devices from the personal to the public domain. The need for humans to share information amongst themselves has given rise to an important part of the world today: the internet. In a bid to allow users storage of their content as well as accessibility, the use of different platforms has been proposed and rolled out to the public. Two of these most commonly used technologies are cloud web hosting and dedicated web hosting. As the names suggest, both of the methods refer to storage of files on the World Wide Web (the internet). The main difference that has been noted between the two methods is the scalability of each method.
Differences
The basic principle that is employed in cloud computing is use of a virtual environment where data storage moves away from the commonly used remote server technology to a new technology where data can be stored in a ‘cloud’, which makes it easily accessible and secure for access by the owner or authorized personnel from any point on earth, provided there is an internet connection. Virtualization of data in cloud computing allows for easy scalability depending on the needs and demand. The use of cloud computing has also been widely employed when running applications that are hosted across different hosts or that utilize multiple services provided for by virtual hosts or services.
A dedicated server on the other hand is centrally located and is preferred for its centralization as it improves security greatly. The dedicated server also allows for a stable data center, which is an asset that reduces expensive infrastructural development. When up and running, the person with access to the dedicated servers has complete control of the server, and with access, customization of server levels is quite easy. The main limitation is the high cost that is normally pegged to dedicated servers by the web host, especially when the needs of the institution grow.
In the case of dealing with cloud hosting, you actually pay for what you use. If your needs are small, it means that you pay a low fee. When you use more space, you pay slightly higher. As your needs progressively change, you can always make changes to the requirements you have. Also, downtime issues can be avoided by placing various servers you may have in a network on cloud computing. This can guarantee for you that at no time will content become unavailable because the web host is having a downtime problem. This in effect serves to expand available bandwidth in the cloud. You can also choose the OS of choice to access the data saved on the cloud. This option is mainly offered for Windows and Linux. All in all, cloud hosting allows for the pleasures of dedicated hosting but for a lower price.
Summary
Cloud hosting stores data remotely in a ‘cloud’ which mainly offers the benefit of data scalability.
Dedicated servers are centralized servers which house data securely.
Data scalability in a dedicated server is not as great as in cloud hosting.
Dedicated web hosting is more expensive than cloud web hosting.
Cloud web hosting is cheaper as it is scalable and payment is for what is used depending on server needs, while a dedicated server is paid ahead for a given allocation.
Changes to the cloud hosting are available and can be done depending on changing needs. This is quite difficult to perform in dedicated web hosting.