“Cloud” has been the buzzword for technology industry since last few years. Devices and several things in our homes have now become a part of the Cloud or are accessible to Cloud. But do you understand what does this mean? Also, when talking about the server, is it essential to host your website on a cloud server only?

Cloud in Details

Cloud is actually referred to something like an interconnecting technology.  Cloud can be defined in simple terms as network of servers connected across the Internet. These servers share resources between them, offer redundancy and distribute some functions across multiple machines located in different locations globally. You might have heard people saying that they are working on the Cloud, but it isn’t a single Cloud, instead, there are multiple clouds that might interact in various ways across the internet.

Clouds can be built for storage only purposes like the Google Drive, performance services like QuickBooks Online, Netflix’s streaming service, or even Yahoo’s email. What is important is that these solutions exist on the Internet, are accessible via Internet connected devices from any location and run across numerous physical machines. All this makes them highly reliable, speedy as well as easy to access. Additionally, interaction between them is also possible which makes it easy to store information on your cloud drive, use that in a cloud-based application and then send the results from a cloud email service to another person.

Shall I Choose Cloud?

Companies have started moving to cloud platforms as the cloud solutions are highly powerful and interconnected. It is quite exciting trend for today’s generation since many amazing applications, storage options, and online services will continuously expand in fast and more impressive way.

Prior to choosing cloud, you need to consider the five factors below which might impact your move to a cloud platform -

Right Technical Knowledge

When you opt for cloud hosting, there is greater amount of setup required along with configuration and maintenance to function properly. Are you aware of these things? If you aren’t, you will need to hire some technical person for setup and maintenance of your site.

Benefit from the Cost Structure

The charges of cloud servers are based upon usage which is completely opposite to shared hosting wherein the charges are simple flat fees. Pricing might always rise as and when you use the cloud platform but won’t come down. There can be unpredictable price changes over time. So looking at all this, is it affordable for you? Will you get enough benefit from a cloud server to make the potential increase in the cost worth it? Is there enough volume available with you to negotiate high volume discounts with the web hosting provider?

Outages or Delays

There are significant technical challenges when moving to cloud which might affect your timeline for getting server online and also early bugs can lead to outages. It is not necessary that every application running smoothly on shared hosting will work the same way on cloud hosting too. Have you planned any solution on these problems when they arise? How will it impact the budget and timeline?

Why Cloud?

Instant provisioning and other cloud-specific features is what mainly enforce businesses to move to the cloud. No doubt content delivery and running applications is possible on cloud platforms which needs several resources on shared hosting. But is that you have a popular application as well as resource-intensive mobile application to host? Why would you be moving to the cloud, if your website loads quickly and runs smoothly on shared platform?

Management of the Cloud

Though being on a cloud platform, site owner needs to retain responsibility for ensuring that all is working correctly. You could face a problem from the server that can’t be resolved remotely or without an expert.

Is it Worth Moving to the Cloud?

It is true that cloud computing is really exciting area of technology and will surely grow over the next few years. Currently organizations and individuals demand expert needs from a web server which is the major reason for moving to the cloud. While shared hosting offers affordable and predictable billing. Also, it requires less technical knowledge which reduces the setup time. For individuals and organizations with typical websites advertising a product or service, shared hosting provides power, ease of maintenance, and affordability that cloud hosting will not for many years to come.