Everything is going into cloud for various reasons. In web hosting industry, more and more providers announce to offer cloud hosting plans with their own advantages. The prices vary a lot from different groups and make it hard to choose from. After reviewed 10+ reputable cloud hosting services, we compiled a list of comprehensive understanding of the infrastructure and secrets about how to select the best cloud hosting plan.

The term cloud computing is actually a type of concept with different definition by different service providers. The general idea of the service means the ability to run a program on many connected computers at the same time. When you choose a cloud service, you must understand the following terms first.

• Network as a service(NaaS). It's the capability to use cloud network connectivity by optimized routes. Cloud servers are deployed into multiple datacenters via central resource allocation so you can get almost 100% network connectivity. The most popular Naas service is VPN. For NaaS, bandwidth is mostly concerned.
• Infrastructure as a service(IaaS). The most basic cloud computing model where it's available as VPS. All services like file-based storage, firewalls, load balancers, IP addresses, VLANs and software bundles can be provided on-demand. IaaS is also the base of private cloud.
• Platform as a service(Paas). This model simply means an operating system from cloud environment where OS and necessary engines are all pre-configured. Users don't have to purchase hardware and all server end configurations because everything is pre-setup, the server resource will auto scale to meet your application requirements.
• Software as a service(Saas). The best cloud computing model. With SaaS cloud, each service will be powered by different cloud engines to make sure the best performance and reliability. SaaS will greatly reduce the cost comparing to traditional server service. Providers only need a single installation in the cloud so users don't have to purchase server hardware and software license but just renting fees needed. Till present, we can purchase almost all web services like office, ERP such desktop applications.

Softwares for Cloud Computing Setup/management

It's a big investment for cloud environment setup based the high requirements for servers and networking. The management system for cloud computing must be pretty reliable and powerful enough or else a single failure will affect tons of users. The most popular cloud computing platforms today are mainly supported by Vmware and Openstack.

VMware cloud computing solution is offered by it's software-defined data center (SDDC) service. With this service you can centrally pooling and automating all data center resources and build your cloud environment fastly. Logically, it's reducing application provisioning time from months to minutes. The software introduced very powerful GUI and security protection. You can monitor/analyze usage stats lively and apply instant changes to the system. The sole purpose of Vmware is to offer enterprise cloud solutions and reduce your cost at the most. More about vmware cloud can be found on this SDDC page.

Unlike the commercial use of vmware, OpenStack(www.openstack.org) is completely open sourced project which is led by rackspace group. The project is supported by more than 10000 global developers from 125 countries. The improvement is almost applied on daily basis. The mission of OpenStack is to enable any organization to create and offer cloud computing services running on standard hardware. It's being used by small to large cloud computing groups with a big global support community behind.

No matter which cloud platform you use, you still have to fight with security every day. Since everything is centrally operated, a single virus affection might be shared by all users thus the end point protection is pretty essential to keep a healthy cloud system. Cloud providers will have to introduce various security solutions to protect the datas.

Types of Cloud Computing

There're two types clouds – Private cloud and Public cloud. Private clouds are used for internal access purpose by big groups who have high requirements to internet data and want to reduce the costs. Private cloud is setup through VLAN where internet access is not enabled. Just the same concept to create multiple VPS servers on host server and disable the vps internet access but you have full access to all services. In this way, you're 100% protected from any kind security issue in the cloud system.

Public cloud is just the oposite of private term. All your datas can be accessed publicly in the network. The main difference comparing to private cloud is the level of security protection. In order to protect your data, direct connectivity to the infrastructure is not enabled for most public cloud providers, you must connect via internet.

Secrets of Cloud Hosting Service

Cloud hosting is offered by lots of hosting groups today. However not all of them are providing everything as advertised. The real cloud hosting is configured through multiple datacenter operation so the best connectivity and reliability can be guaranteed.

However, many traditional hosting providers are trying to show their abilities and over-advertise their services. They just setup multiple cluster servers via SAN storage then create virtual private servers from the system then call it clouds. There's no problem for small applications because you will never go beyond the resource limits. But if you're trying to host enterprise level services, you will run into problems in quick time. Before you decide a cloud hosting provider, you must learn their infrastructures as detail as possible such as cloud platform specs, network specs and datacenter locations etc and ask them to give you some test services to check with.

The true cloud hosting service is expensive because of the big investment from providers, they have to prepare enough resources to meet up with your on demand growth. Such services are only provided by IT giants like rackspace and Amazon. They're recognized the standards for cloud computing technologies and be able to affect the industry directly.

However, it doesn't mean you have to pay hundreds and thousands of dollars in order to use the service. There're also some decent cloud providers with very affordable hosting plans like VPS.NET(http://www.vps.net). The group setup more than 20 datacenters in each corner on the planet for their cloud system. Starts from $10/mo with instant setup and choice of windows/linux platform, your cloud server from vps.net simply means satisfication and success! More about vps.net can be found at this cloud vps hosting review article.

When your website grows up or when you like to gain more server access, VPS server is the most affordable choice. The service is provided by lots of hosting providers with various offers. In general, the market is a bit complex because of the big amount competitors. You can easily run into bad choice by advertisements. While many users pay attention to price, server providers are also trying to be profitable as more as possible. In this article, we have an in-depth reviews over VPS server specifications and help find the best equilibrium point.

Virtualization Technologies

We have introduced some of the popular VPS technologies in vps hosting page. Generally, if you're looking for linux server VPS, the most popular platform will be either OpenVZ(www.openvz.org) or XEN Server(www.xenproject.org) because they will help server providers reduce investments. Server providers be able to customize the software configurations from kernel level. The weak point of the two solutions is they can oversell easily, and that's one of the bases for cheap vps server service.

For better choice, the virtualization platform will be setup on Virtuozzo(www.parallels.com/products/virtuozzo). It's well known for system level virtualization where system resources will be allocated instantly once the server instance is created. Means clients with such server service will get guaranteed resources. Virtuozzo will make full use of the host server smartly and ensure each clients will not be affected each other.

Vmware(www.vmware.com) and Hyper-v would be best for Windows vps creation. VMware is leading virtual platform solution with long history from the industry. It's also one of the best cloud computing solutions for it's powerful and stable performance. You can easily create/edit server configurations with live monitoring. Actually you can install almost all server OS by vmware platform and each server will work independantly and won't affect each other. However, if you're in need of dedicated solution for windows VPS, hyper-v is your best choice. Hyper-v is provided by microsoft official team and fully optimized for windows server virtualization. Via hyper-v you can make full use of all available windows server advantages just like on dedicated server. If you need high quality server performance, you shouldn't choose any other solution but hyper-v.

Windows or Linux

Do you need windows or linux vps server? Normally, when your project is microsoft technologies based such as asp.net then you have to select windows option. However, windows vps service is more expensive as it requires microsoft license and support. You also need to pay when you like to install extra services like MS Sql server. Advantages with windows VPS is you have GUI interface and be ale to configure most services by mouse clicking. You also don't have to use a hosting control panel for website setup because you get graphic views for everything. But you still have choice to use one of the best free windows hosting control panel "websitpanel" where you can automate most services from central setup.

When you go with linux vps server, you will be pretty professional in command line operation or else you will highly rely on hosting control panel softwares like cpanel, webmin etc. But unlike windows vps server with high system requirements, linux can work with very low server configurations. Since most linux OS and softwares are free to use, you can reduce the overal investment greatly. Linux vps is suggested when you like to study server management or when you're skillful in using the platform.

Managed or Unmanaged

What means managed or unmanaged vps server? It's defined differently by providers. However, for most of the case managed server means you get hosting control panel and backup support while unmanaged means 100% naked servers with initial installation. You have to choose via your management skills and project requirements. If you don't have the time in configuring/monitoring your server, managed service is perfect choice with the extra costs. With unmanaged server, you need to be responsible for server configuration and protection as well as failover backups.

Based our experience, managed vps server is selected for production websites because they would like to keep everything in safe hands as more as possible. You can also get quick support over managed servers because of the extra payments. Unmanaged server is most popular for practicing. You might be pretty skillful in operating the server on local computer, but things change when it goes online. You have to monitor the system resource usage and server security in order to keep it in healthy state.

How is Cheap VPS Server Provided?

So, how come there're many cheap vps server plans? When we say cheap, it means server price under $10/mo. If you check those service more we'll find they're 100% linux based. Unlike all leading vps solutions, these cheap servers are setup under less powerful hardware installations. Moreover, most vps servers are created by open souced platforms like Openvz so providers can reduce the investments. From above introduction we learnt this platform can be oversold heavily. For instance, we can create up to 10 vps instance in order to keep a healthy environment. However, in order to be profitable from cheap server offering, you have to increase the vps instance to 15 or 20. So the secret of cheap vps server service is completely based less power(or outdated) hardware installation and oversells. You can rarely find a cheap service with everything as guaranteed.

Best VPS Server Hosting

Arvixe is arwarded the best vps server provider based server features, virtualization platforms and performance. Arvixe provides both windows and linux vps hosting plans with leading server configurations. The arvixe windows VPS hosting is created on windows server 2012 from hyper-v platform. Host servers are updated with newest DELL server production and security fixes. You will get free websitepanel with all optimized services ready on your vps server such as sql server database, mysql database, email server etc. The linux vps plans are offered on Centos and created by Virtuozzo which is the best as suggested above.

Unlike all other vps server providers, everything is provided as "Managed" by arvixe group. Vps servers get sufficient RAM and CPU resources to deal with medium to large web applications. Meanwhile, their support is available 24×7 through multiple channels from all United States. Your server and data are all protected in safe hands.

View arvixe VPS hosting plan details from http://www.arvixe.com/vps_hosting

Shared hosting is the most popular choice by over 90% internet websites and daily sign ups are counted by millions per day. Why should you choose shared hosting but not other hosting plans? Simply because of the simple setup and affordable costs. We don't have to deal with server setup and all other server end technical chanllenges but just use the service directly under a powerful hosting control panel. We did a comprehensive and in-depth reviews over 100+ popular shared hosting websites and unveiled the secrets of some most essential offers like disk storage, monthly data transfer, number of hosted domain names etc. It's dedicate designed to help with your hosting research and avoid a problmatic service.

Disk Storage/Data Transfer

Web hosting is a matured business with rigorous competetion. The approx number of newly created brands are counted by thousand every day. However, over 60% business were operated by the popular providers who have long histories and lots of user reviews. People can feel safe to proceed with them because of their popularity. Thoese novice providers definitely want to share a part of the cake. Most of the time, they will provide more features than regular to attract your eyeballs. The most popular term would be the unlimited offer for disk storage and data transfer. But, based the less and less cost for shared hosting service, how will they profit with such offer? The secret is overselling.

Every hosting provider can announce to provide unlimited storage/bandwidth by overselling. But what would be the exact breakthrough point of unlimit? By our 7 years experience from various hosting brands, the maximum disk space you can get is 10GB for shared hosting. The limit might go litter high based the monthly paying. Some decent web hosts like Inmotion hosting or Arvixe will increase the limit higher because you pay a little more than most other budget web hosts. However, 10GB is the standard for most other providers.

How about data transfer under shared server? Well, most providers announce its unlimited but it's still limited. The ammount of traffic you can use is solely based the rest resources on the server. For example if the server is allocated for 100GB bandwidth and only 1GB used by other websites, then you can use all the rest 99GBs. The vice versa. Because it's a shared server, all resources are shared by all customer websites in the same space. When it's used over you can not use any more. That's how sometimes your website is still working fine while 10000 concurrent users online but it's down sometimes for only 1000 users.

Unlimited Domain Hosting

The capability of hosting unlimited domain names is a big lightspot when people looking for a hosting service. Technically speaking, there's no problem at all for any web server. The point is how much disk storage and bandwidth you're going to ultilize. Based above explanation of storage/data transfer limitation for shared space, you can't really host unlimited websites with good traffic. You can host unlimited domain names as long as they're not used frequently. There's a good example with one of my old hosting company. One customer added over 300 domain names to a single hosting account. But he did not upload any file to server space. All domain names are used for DNS resolution purpose but hosted elsewhere.

Unlimited Email Accounts

Should you create unlimited email accounts for your website? I believe the answer is no for 99.99% persons. Why should you need that many? Your business can be running perfect by several central email accounts. A single catchall email account will ensure you will not lose any incoming email. So the unlimited email offer is absolutely marketing term with the least use. For email service, what you really should pay attention to is the speed of outgoing/incoming emails. A heavy loading server will delay your emails for minutes to hours. Most cpanel hosting servers do not seperate web severs/email servers.

99.99% Uptime Guarantee

The words are simple to tell out but requires more than 300% efforts to archive that. Especially for some newly created hosting brands who rely on reseller or VPS servers, they don't have direct access to server hardwares and actual network configuration. For such case, the gurantee is just from mouth and customer won't share a single light from this policy. For such high rate guarantees, the hosting group has to do great efforts in server/network monitoring and optimization. They will also have to be smart in dealing with various attacks to protect customer accounts. For most of the time, you need to rent space from multiple datacenters and do failover backups. Based all those involved actions, it's a big investment and not doable for small companies. The highest uptime stats with our experience is only 99.85%, 99.99% rate never happend yet with any web host.

Around the Clock Support Guarantee

Almost every hosting service announce to provide 24×7 supports in various channels. But what a real 24×7 support includes? Such support guarantee requires hosting companies to employ lots of support staff to be on duty by turns. To serve people from different locations, you may also have to setup multiple support centers to handle the ammount of support requests. Unless you generate big profits from your business, the support guarantee is simply on paper only.

Best Shared Hosting Provider

Based all above concerns and price value, arvixe is arwarded the best shared hosting provider with 9/10 positive customer feedbacks. Arvixe provides affordable and honest hosting service from both windows and linux platforms. Their support is available from each corner of United States with free life style. Arvixe hosting service is recognized as fast, stable and reliable. They proudly announce 1 cent hosting service for up to 30 days evaluation!

Go to arvixe official site and view more details http://www.arvixe.com