What is Cloud Hosting?

A simple explanation by Atlantic.Net

What Is Cloud Hosting?

Simply stated, Cloud Hosting is a server and network infrastructure that uses software to divide a single physical server into multiple virtual servers. Often, these devices are referred to as virtual machines, or VMs.

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Recently, small businesses have begun moving towards cloud hosting to meet their everyday needs. These servers may be used for web hosting, application development, or remote-accessible desktop work environments, and much more.

This is part of an extensive series of guides about managed services.

Atlantic.Net Cloud Servers

Unlike traditional shared hosting, Atlantic.Net Cloud Hosting assigns dedicated resources to each cloud server, rather than many different users’ websites and applications competing for computing resources. Each cloud server receives a partitioned drive with storage space only accessible from within their own operating instance. Each cloud server is assigned a dedicated amount of RAM and CPU cores (threads). In addition to the resources you are paying for, your cloud server can also burst to use additional server resources during non-peak times.

Cloud servers may be used for web hosting, application development, or remote-accessible desktop work environments, and much more. To understand this migration, first we need to look at the most common types of server hosting available.

In addition to dedicated server hosting and compliant hosting offerings such as HIPAA hosting and PCI hosting, Atlantic.Net offers multiple types of cloud hosting: Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, and Managed Cloud.

Types of Cloud Hosting

Types of Cloud Hosting

Public Cloud Hosting

Public Cloud

Public Cloud is typically configured by the user via a control panel and/or RESTful API. Cloud server instances can be created by you in seconds, easily scaled up, and deleted whenever you wish. You only pay for what you use with our cloud servers. We offer on-demand pricing, as well as discounted term pricing for those users who plan to deploy their resources for 12 months or longer. Additionally, we have created one-click install applications for the more commonly used server configurations, such as LAMP, LEMP, WordPress, Node.js, October CMS, cPanel/WHM, and more. Cloud servers may also be easily scaled as needed. This allows users to maintain and configure their set-up without having to request outside help each time minor changes or upgrades are needed. Public cloud can be easily configured for:

  • Website hosting
  • WordPress hosting
  • eCommerce
  • Email servers
  • Forex trading
  • File storage and sharing
  • Cloud databases
  • File backups
  • Test and development servers
  • Remote desktop environments
  • ...and much more

Private Cloud

Private Cloud

Private Cloud, or private virtualization, provides you the same redundancies as our Public Cloud offerings, but with the added security of dedicated hardware. Our team will work with you to custom-design a private cloud computing environment that suits your company’s needs. With Private Cloud also comes the opportunity to install any supported operating system. With Private Cloud, you get redundant networking, power, and storage. We can also setup custom replication clusters to help reduce any downtime. With replication, each of your cloud servers are being synchronized on two different physical servers. If one of your physcial cloud servers goes down, it will fail-over to the other machine. Private Cloud is a great fit for those managing especially sensitive data that cannot afford any downtime.


Hybrid Cloud Hosting

Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid Cloud gives you the best of both worlds. For your very sensitive data and critical workloads, you can deploy a custom Private Cloud environment. For development environments and less critical workloads, like customer-facing web sites, those can be easily deployed in our Public Cloud. This type of hybrid environment is especially useful when combined with container technologies like Docker. Your less-critical applications can be updated frequently and retain great global reliability across our global data centers, all while keeping your sensitive databases secluded in the private cloud.


Managed Cloud Hosting

Managed Cloud

is set up initially by our cloud technicians, and is released to you once the setup and basic configuration is completed. Managed cloud also offers configurations with Atlantic.Net’s firewall and intrusion detection system solutions for greater security. These important security measures are administrated by Atlantic.Net technicians. This provides you with the peace of mind that additional security brings along with the an optimally configured server environment. If a user needs a more complex configuration or does not have the technical resources or time to devote, managed cloud is a typically a great fit.


The Benefits of Atlantic.Net’s Cloud

The Benefits of Atlantic.Net’s Cloud

Scaling and Flexibility

Scaling and Flexibility

Traditional VPS devices can’t resize the server on demand, or re-prioritize server resources dynamically. Atlantic.Net has the ability to increase the size of a cloud server instance on demand in seconds.

Atlantic.Net Public Cloud offers you a pay-as-you-go pricing model with no minimum fee. You only pay for the services you need, for as long as you use them, without requiring long-term contracts or complex licensing agreements. Services are billed on an hourly basis up to the monthly cap rate. The hourly rate is determined by dividing the monthly rate by 672 hours (28 days). If you use a service for more than 672 hours in a month, you will only be billed for the monthly rate (672 hours).. This allows the freedom and flexibility to spin up a server, use it as long as you need, delete the server, and only pay for the time you used.


CPU

CPU

The dedication of CPU cycles is an important part of a true Cloud infrastructure. With virtual private servers, the CPU cycles is often shared across users with no resource guarantees. This can cause conflicts in utilization as clients with a greater computational need may monopolize the CPU, slowing down all other users. Additionally, some hosts will overclock their CPUs so they can claim higher CPU cycles. Atlantic.Net provides dedicated CPU cycles, utilizes quality CPUs, does not overclock them The CPU speeds shown in a server are the minimum speed it will process at, not “under optimal conditions.”

Atlantic.Net guarantees that each device gets a minimum of an Intel Xeon E5-2620,

as we are constantly upgrading and expanding, it may be higher depending on which system your servers are provisioned on.

Each system has a certain number of guaranteed threads, determined by the size and options associated with the selected Cloud Server plan. We not only guarantee access to the CPU cycles you are paying for when you need them, but you can also burst to use additional CPU cycles when they are not in use.


Memory

Memory

Some providers over-provision memory for use between multiple virtual machines. Atlantic.Net provides dedicated memory. This prevents resources from being tied up by another user on the server.

Additionally, many VPS companies do not use Error-correcting code (ECC) RAM that can detect and correct the most common kinds of internal data corruption do to the increased hardware costs. At Atlantic.Net, our entire Cloud Hosting environment runs on ECC RAM to prioritize data accuracy and system stability.


Storage

Storage

Many Cloud or VPS servers still use traditional hard drives. The average hard drive speed is 7200 RPM, equating to about 80-160 MB/s. If you are writing many small files, this can slow down to as little as 0.7-1.3MB/s. At Atlantic.Net, all our Cloud Servers are powered by enterprise-grade solid state drives (SSDs), providing blazing fast performance for your servers and applications. SSDs provide read and write speeds of 4x – 5x the speeds of hard drives.

Atlantic.Net installs the operating system directly on the SSD storage associated with your Cloud Server. A Linux based operating system install is around 5GB or less and a Windows operating system install is about 15GB or less.

If you require a large amount of storage space for your server, please consider our Storage Optimized Cloud Servers. They put an emphasis on storage space rather than CPU and RAM, and will provide the most amount of storage per dollar.


IPs On Demand

IPs On Demand

Many VPS devices only allow one public IP per server. All Atlantic.Net Cloud Servers come with one static public IP address. However, you can also provision additional IPs on demand. This means that not only do you get an IP to yourself, it also allows you to attach multiple additional IPs to the server, for network routing or hosting multiple websites.

Additionally, each Atlantic.Net cloud account is assigned a private IP range to allow local networks to be set up between multiple servers in the same datacenter. Some cloud hosting companies charge for private IPs, or for the traffic on these ranges. All Atlantic.Net private network traffic is provided without any cost to you.


Location

Location

Some Cloud or VPS hosting only has one location to choose from. Atlantic.Net has multiple data centers in the United States, Canada, and Europe, with locations coming to Asia in the near future. For optimum personal or business use, different data centers can be chosen to reduce latency times, allow separated distribution, or increase redundancies.


Redundancy

Redundancy

Some providers utilize fully redundant infrastructure, others don’t. Atlantic.Net Cloud services are hosted in top-notch data centers. This means all our cloud and new deployments have redundant infrastructure components, dual-power feeds, generator backup, and multiple redundant network uplinks. We also have redundant HVAC systems and 24 hour in-person staffing at all our data centers. This provides a supremely fault-tolerant system, allowing us to provide a 100% network uptime SLA.

At Atlantic.Net, our Cloud Servers are backed by RAID 10 storage protection, this is the best option currently available for I/O intensive applications and to prevent storage related downtime. Without the disk mirroring and disk striping of RAID 10, a drive failure could potentially cause downtime or data loss. Some providers do not utilize any type of storage redundancy in their Cloud, an unnecessary risk for your important data.

Some providers only offer the option of weekly backups of your files, while Atlantic.Net offers daily backups of your entire Cloud Server. This provides you with the peace of mind that you can restore your important data if the need arises, such when files are accidentally deleted, you need to revert an update to your server or code, etc. Atlantic.Net’s daily backups are accessible for immediate restore through our cloud portal for your convenience.


support

Support

Atlantic.Net is available to assist you 24/7/365 via phone, email, and chat. We monitor and maintain the data center, network, and all the hardware that powers your Cloud Servers. We also provide a large amount of articles in our Community on commonly asked questions and technical walk-throughs.


What is Public Cloud Hosting

What Is Public Cloud Hosting?

In order to take full advantage of the benefits of cloud computing, every organization must choose not just the right cloud provider, but also the particular model of cloud computing that suits its business needs. Public cloud may be the model which is most well known, in part because it is used by many of the world’s largest companies.

Cloud computing is broadly defined as the use and storage of data and programs over the internet, enabled by virtualization, as a scalable and elastic service. Atlantic.Net’s Public Cloud is basically the delivery of that service from a pool of shared resources, on demand. It provides some of the same benefits of private or specialized compliant clouds, but with significant differences which make it ideal for some organizations.


The Benefits Public Cloud Hosting

The Benefits of Public Cloud

Scalability in IT systems is the ability to quickly add large amounts of computing power on-demand, according to the needs of the IT system. A company using Atlantic.Net’s Public Cloud, and which experiences a major increase in demand for resources, can meet that demand by utilizing our RESTful API and rapidly adding virtual machines to scale the system. Organizations utilizing Private Cloud have resources reserved for them but with the trade-off of less scaling capacity.

Businesses using Atlantic.Net’s Public Cloud can take full advantage of a network that includes five data centers coast-to-coast in North America and Europe, particularly benefitting organizations with international staff or customers. Adding Cloud Servers in a different data center can improve performance without requiring a major financial investment. Another data center opening soon in Virginia will further expand the capacity of the Atlantic.Net Public Cloud.

Atlantic.Net’s Public Cloud is also closest to a utility-based cloud computing model, in which all expenses are operating expenses, rather than capital expenses. Everything is billed according to use, with no up-front cost and no commitment. The broad sharing of resources between many organizations in Atlantic.Net’s Public Cloud can produce economies of scale and reduce costs, while making technologies available that would be impractical for a company to deploy on its own.

Atlantic.Net’s Public Cloud can also benefit non-IT companies with significant IT workloads.


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Who Uses Public Cloud Hosting

The number of companies using cloud-based applications to enhance collaboration, engage customers, and streamline business practices will grow from 70 percent today to 90 percent within three years, according to IDG’s Enterprise Cloud Computing Survey, 2016. These companies are often best served by avoiding the management and maintenance of their IT systems, rather than taking on burdens outside of their core competency, and Atlantic.Net Public Cloud leaves these responsibilities to our own highly trained in-house experts.

According to a TechTarget survey , 31 percent of companies using public cloud are most motivated by infrastructure cost saving, while 26 percent prioritize flexibility, and a further 21 percent say the benefits of scalability are most important. While those are not the only benefits of public cloud, and achieving them is not automatic, they are major advantages for many digital businesses.


Who Uses Public Cloud?

Organizations that have different IT demands at different times, or in different regions, can benefit from public cloud’s scalability and cost efficiency. To maintain performance with dedicated resources would require purchasing as much capacity as would be needed during peak periods. Those with variable workloads can add capacity as needed, rather than attempting to project future requirements. Companies offering online stores and web services companies, software developers, and web hosts can gain efficient scalability, which in turn delivers tremendous performance and availability at the lowest possible cost.

Users of Public Cloud Hosting

The organizations most likely to achieve the greatest benefit from Atlantic.Net’s Public Cloud, therefore, are often those with unpredictable or highly variable network traffic, those serving customers or end-users with data which is not regulated or particularly sensitive, as well as those looking to reduce capital expenses.

Atlantic.Net’s Public Cloud's Unique Advantages

Atlantic.Net’s Public Cloud's Unique Advantages

Atlantic.Net offers a combination of valuable experience, service, and infrastructure that helps organizations go from the planning stage to achieving business objectives with Public Cloud. The importance of scale to public cloud services means that the market tends to be dominated by big companies, with the result that starting out can seem daunting and impersonal. Atlantic.Net provides a range of on-demand plans available, and the personalized customer support to guide organizations through the entire process, so the pitfalls and risks of unsuccessful implementations can be identified and avoided.

Atlantic.Net’s Public Cloud provides IT services accessed through the internet, just like Private Cloud, but is offered on-demand, and has a degree of scalability and cost efficiency unmatched by other cloud environments. It is ideal for businesses with workload growth and capital expense concerns, and for companies that do not require guaranteed resources or certain specific security measures. If this describes the business needs of your organization, our customer support experts can help you set up an Atlantic.Net Public Cloud environment that meets those needs, now and for the future.


Cloud: Changing the Landscape of Hosting for the Better

Cloud Computing: Changing the Landscape of Hosting for the Better

The inherently flexible nature of cloud means it continues to develop and evolve. It allows you to easily adapt your hosting environment to keep up with your changing needs. Due to its advantages over conventional IT solutions, more users and organizations are moving to Cloud hosting. Cloud is allowing new ideas and creations. The economics of Cloud technology allows users to develop products that were previously not possible under earlier hosting models.

Cloud Hosting tends to be a cost-effective middle ground, allowing rapid customization and upgrade potential. Recently, small businesses have begun moving towards cloud hosting to meet their everyday needs. It allows small businesses to operate in an affordable environment, while still maintaining a dedicated resource pool. Atlantic.Net utilizes RAID-10 and other redundant architecture to prevent system downtime, and maintains a 100% uptime SLA. Any of our Cloud Hosting solutions may also include a firewall appliance and intrusion detection system (IDS) for greater security.

At Atlantic.Net, our World-class cloud hosting platform provides you with the freedom to choose the plans that best fit your budget and business needs. Our plans are designed to provide maximum flexibility to business as well as developers. Please contact us via email at [email protected] or via phone at 888-618-3282 . Our team would be happy to guide you towards the solution that is ideal for your business needs.



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