Cloud computing is here to stay thats a fact. While some were still skeptical of the wide-ranging effects of the cloud revolution several years ago, it has become clear that outsourced, cloud-based computing and infrastructure solutions are the wave of the future.
Still, some people are skeptical. Even though cloud hosting is one of the earliest cloud technologies, there are still individuals and companies who arent making use of the cloud and are missing out on the many benefits of websites that are hosted on the cloud.
In this article, well take a look at the top 6 reasons your website should be running on the cloud, to give you an inside perspective on the benefits of cloud web hosting.
1. Lower Costs
Hosting a website on your own is expensive. You have to invest in server architecture, licensing, and operating costs for an on-premises server. Not only that, youll have to have IT staff who are able to service and maintain your equipment or youll have to outsource to another IT firm that is willing to do so.
Cloud hosting allows you to avoid all of this. By simply paying a flat fee per month, your website will be hosted on cutting-edge servers that are professionally maintained without requiring extensive downtime or the services of your own IT staff.
Because of this, costs for cloud hosting are extremely low compared to on-premise web hosting. You dont have to pay for power, infrastructure, maintenance, or staff to maintain your servers, which allows you to run your website more efficiently while still maintaining a lower overhead and lower costs.
2. Higher Availability, Stability And Performance
Cloud hosting services are built for high availability and stability, and the most high-quality cloud hosting services offer an uptime of over 99.9%. Uptime and high availability are crucial for a successful website, and cloud-based hosting service offers much better stability than privately-hosted websites.
In addition, cloud hosting offers better performance the best cloud hosting services use SSD cloud server devices that deliver incredible speed. While these devices may be cost-ineffective for a single company to purchase, contracting with a cloud hosting service allows you to use the best, most top-of-the-line server infrastructure without paying an arm and a leg for the privilege of doing so.
This all adds up to higher availability, and a faster, more stable cloud platform.
3. Better Scaling Potential
When you buy a new server, any infrastructure you dont use is wasted. Why pay for 100% of a new server when youre only using 25%? Thats just a waste of money.
Cloud hosting allows you to purchase only what you need and scale accordingly. If you need more bandwidth, speed, or storage, its as easy as clicking a button, or getting in touch with a customer support team.
This also allows you to get much better performance without investing capital into your own infrastructure, allowing you to grow your company quickly without worrying about spending too much money on advanced infrastructure.
Since you can always scale up at will, and youre not paying for space you dont need, you can focus on growing your business and youll know that your web hosting capabilities will always be able to keep up with you.
4. Easier Maintenance
Maintaining your own web infrastructure is expensive and difficult and not just because the servers themselves cost money. If you have your own servers hosting your website, youre going to need your IT staff to maintain them which can distract them from other tasks that may be more beneficial to your company.
Your staff are also going to have to maintain your servers periodically, and if youve put your system together yourself, this maintenance could lead to a lot of downtime and lost sales or business due to your website being out of commission.
Cloud hosting avoids all of these problems. When you contract with a cloud hosting service, dedicated staff ensure that all server infrastructure is running effectively, and that your servers are patched with the latest security updates and software packages that you need to run your website. Easier maintenance means less downtime and lower costs and thats a win-win.
5. Faster Page Loading
High-tech SSD cloud servers offer incredible page loading performance, especially compared to an on-premises server infrastructure that may use older, hard disk based storage.
Page loading time is one of the most important factors that determines whether or not a customer will continue to use your website. Research has shown that if any given webpage doesnt load within about a half-second, abandonment rates increase dramatically.
Because cloud hosting services only use top-of-the-line web hosting equipment, you can rest easy knowing that your webpages will load quickly, and that your customers wont abandon your website just because of a long loading time.
6. Your Data Is Safe
On-premises web hosting can be risky especially if youre not making use of private or public-cloud backups of your data. Natural disasters, security vulnerabilities, or total hardware failure can wipe out your critical data, and totally cripple your online infrastructure.
Of course, web hosting companies arent immune from these issues but their entire business model is based on providing safe, redundant web hosting. If you contract with a reputable cloud web hosting firm, your data is totally protected with backups and redundant servers, allowing you to host your website with confidence, knowing that youre protected from data loss. For example, ScalaHosting SSD Cloud service keeps three copies of your data on three separate drives and three separate storage servers thanks to the StorPool distributed storage system. That results in great reliability and security for your data and its almost impossible to suffer data loss. Traditional servers usually keep one copy of your data.
7. Instant deployment
Cloud hosting works with virtual machines. You can configure a server once and create a template from it. You can use it to deploy as many servers as you want in less than a minute. With a traditional server just installing the OS will take no less than 30 minutes. You can quickly deploy new servers when you need more resources and terminate them once they are not needed anymore.
