In this article we dive into what public cloud hosting actually is, along with its advantages and disadvantages, so you can make the best decision for your business.
What is Public Cloud Hosting?
Public cloud hosting utilizes the resources of a network of physical servers to provide a virtualized hosting environment that’s fast, flexible, and scalable.
The main way that public cloud hosting differs from private cloud hosting is that a public cloud provides hosting to multiple clients within the same shared physical server infrastructure. The only overlap you’ll have with other sites are the physical servers themselves. Each virtual network will still be isolated from one another.
Although this seems similar to traditional shared hosting it differs in its approach to utilizing the physical server space. Public cloud hosting draws from so many different physical servers that the space and resources you have access to are theoretically infinite and you won’t suffer any lags in performance from other sites who happen to be using the same physical server resources.
Advantages of Public Cloud Hosting
Utilizing public cloud hosting offers your website a ton of benefits that are hard to find in other kinds of hosting. Below we look at a few of the biggest reasons you’ll want to consider using public cloud hosting:
- Scalability. Public clouds offer near infinite scalability. Resources can be increased on demand to meet growing site or traffic requirements. Flexible pricing. With public cloud hosting you share the cost of the physical server environment. Plus, you generally have a flexible pricing structure that’s only based on the resources you consume. The pricing model is similar to that of paying for your monthly utilities.
- Extremely reliable. Due to the high number of servers and networks involved in creating a cloud hosting environment, when a single server fails or becomes overloaded your site can simply draw resources from another server. This will greatly help to prevent any downtime or lapses in service.
- High performance. Public cloud hosts are naturally high performing, as you’ll have access to a nearly unlimited amount of server resources.