Group of sites moved to cloud hosting

Anything I should know?

[Jon_King]

This will be the second host I use that says they are upgrading their service and this process involves moving my sites to their new cloud hosting platform.

How does this type of hosting compare to my current Linux shared server hosting. What should I know about it? What do I ask for or look for when it come to cloud hosting?

A basic explanation would be most appreciated.

[drhowarddrfine]

The "cloud" was good for explaining to people who don't understand where their data goes and where web sites exist. The cloud is servers on the internet. No less, no more. You're already in it and on it.

[Jon_King]

I think this is not an answer.

My sites currently sit on a server or set servers in a single datacenter.

This does not appear to be the same thing as Cloud Hosting.

[Terabytes]

"cloud" refers to any services delivered over a network...

period...


if you're not hosting it inside your house/home/office.... it's coming from the "cloud"

[Terabytes]

it's probably some type of sales pitch to describe perhaps some upgraded hardware... or something of that nature...

or they are doing it off site themselves.. and calling someone else's datacenter "the cloud"

[drhowarddrfine]

I think this is not an answer.

My sites currently sit on a server or set servers in a single datacenter.

Then let's see what Wikipedia calls it:

Cloud computing is the use of computing resources (hardware and software) that are delivered as a service over a network (typically the Internet). The name comes from the use of a cloud-shaped symbol as an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it contains in system diagrams.

[Jon_King]

I have been not clear in my question. Please accept my apology.

My hosting company is about to do something different with my sites.

The hardware and location are about to change from a single datacenter where they show me pictures and description of their hardware (or leased hardware), the cooling and fire protection, earthquake proof stats, exact equipment info etc. to something nebulous they call the cloud.

What does this mean to me as a webmaster? I have about 100 sites I am responsible for and I am trying to do my diligence and understand the impact or possible impact or implications of this change.

[Hoople]

Sound like a clustering technology re-spun into new marketing speak ( 'cloud hosting' ).

In conventional hosting your domain, lets call it example.com has a single A record in DNS corresponding to one server IP address.

If the cloud virtualises your site across multiple servers this creates a need for multiple A records, each to an IP address (only one server active at a time). So 'the cloud' would needs to interact with your domain's DNS records.

Done on the cheap a second A record for example.com gets added for each additional data center server IP address. Then DNS would round robin shuffle thru A records to find the live server. This has a time lag performance hit (compared to 'virtualises' above).

Also if multiple servers are involved the who of keeping them in synch and the auditing of the success of same becomes an issue. Time lag of normal synching affect the currentness of what the user sees too.

[lucy24]

Based on all of the preceding...

Whenever my host puts out a sales pitch for moving over (voluntarily) to "cloud hosting" my response is to put my fingers in my ears and hum loudly.

Is this an appropriate response?

[Leosghost]

yes..

[mack]

The hardware and location are about to change from a single datacenter where they show me pictures and description of their hardware (or leased hardware), the cooling and fire protection, earthquake proof stats, exact equipment info etc. to something nebulous they call the cloud.

I think the safest bet would be to ask your hosting provider to explain in detail just what exactly is going to change..

As others have mentioned, any web host could reasonably describe their service as a cloud service. It would be interesting to understand exactly what your host is offering that is different.

Mack.

[edited by: mack at 12:05 am (utc) on Feb 16, 2013]

[GaryK]

At my host unless you've got a colo or dedicated server they call it cloud hosting.

[tbear]

I think your host is just clouding the issue with ad talk.....

Mack's suggestion sounds good, to me.

Lucy's suggestion depends on how 'in tune' you can hum, for it to work....LOL.

[scooterdude]

my understanding(possibly wrong), of what such means,is

Previously, your site might have been physically present on a discreet , that is single server, possibly without load balancing or with limited load balancing

Cloud:
Physically, this usually means a very large array of servers connected by cloud software, all collectively load balancing, however, if you're with a small hosting firm, it could also mean that they're moving from running your site on their own colo hardware servers to running from another companies cloud infrastructure.(Amazon,Rackspace,etc)

[drhowarddrfine]

Um. What would be a good tune to hum?

[tbear]

How's about, 'Obscured By Clouds', by Pink Floyd....;)