If you are like most of our clients, you currently have your website hosted on shared hosting perhaps with an old development firm, or you rented a few physical servers. In most cases you made this decision 3-5 years ago before the concept of cloud hosting really took off. A recent enviornment change has brought up the question of where do we go and is the cloud right for my site? That change could that you've out grown your existing platform, you need something more roboust. Perhaps you unforunately found that hosting company or little development firm can't cut it in the low margin, high volume business of hosting and they are shutting down.
Don't feel bad, more than half of all firms are in a similar situation.
So, now you want to know, is cloud hosting right for my organization. How do I even proceed? We wanted to tackle the top 5 questions web masters, IT Directors, and site owners ask. We are not a hosting provider, but as a leading mobile, tablet, and responsive web design and development firm. We routinely help clients migrations. In fact, this year alone we've literally done dozens of hosting migrations and answered these same questions.
Which Provider Should I Choose?
There are literally dozens of cloud hosting companies. Bluetube generally recommends one of the top 3, which we profile briefly below. We do this for two critical reasons. First, hosting is a commodity. This means that it is a low margin, high volume business. Many companies previously tried to enter the hosting business, including many developement firms. They found that the profit margins were not significant, and many exited the business, leaving you, the customer, to invest yet again in a hosting migration. Second is relaibility, support, and sophistication of the cloud platform are often dedicing factors. The largest providers often have the most robust options.
Here is the brief run down:
Rackspace - One of the premiere cloud and physical hosting providers in the world. Rackspace hosts some of the largest companies, including many Fortune 500 clients, reliablly. Rackspace is known for their fanatical support and are often the go to choice for clients who are looking for "white glove" level of service. Options include physical or cloud servers, and we can help you determine which is right for you.
Amazon EC2- You may have heard of Amazon's cloud services, or you may still think of them as the place you buy Kindle's. Regardless, Amazon is one of the largest cloud hosting providers in the world. They host huge organizations such as Expedia, Pinterest, Netflix, and foursquare, just to name a few. Amazon is known for its variety of setup options and choices, and its low pricing models. Amazon is the go-to choice for clients who have some in-house support capabilities,where cost or flexibility are the primary drivers. Although Amazon's myriad of options may seem confusing, we can easily help you navigate them.
Microsoft Azure - If you have a Microsoft platform; what better place to host your solution than with Microsoft's own hosting? Great pricing and flexibility make Microsoft Azure a growing choice for clients hosting Microsoft technologies. Azure is the go-to choice for organizations who don't need Rackspace's "white glove" service, but prefer not to take on the complexities and sophistication of Amazon.
Will my content be safe?
The simple answer is yes. All of these providers have backed up and redundant storage, which means you'll probably never need to worry about your site content. It is a common concern that you no longer control your content in the cloud. There is some truth, and if this keeps you up at night we always recommend having an automated backup to your location. However, if you choose a reliable hosting provider and you pay your bills on time, this shouldn't be a concern.
It is also a good time to note that if you have sophisticated needs, cloud hosting actually makes it easier to do high availability and high volume setups such as loading balancing.
What about backups?
All three of the major providers off snapshot backups of your systems. This means without needing specialized backup software you can backup, and more importantly, restore your server literally within minutes. However, you will want to ensure you work with a developer that will setup backups, none of the providers do this automatically. You will also need someone in your organization, or external support, to help you in the event you need a restore.
What are my support options and costs?
Each of the major providers offer great support, but there are some things to consider. First, each of these hosting providers charge an additional monthly fee if you elevated support. If you want someone to call at 3am to restart your website, that generally costs extra. Basic support for hosting problems is included. If you are unsure of the difference, then you probably want to sign up for the additional support.
As you may have seen above in our hosting profile, if you want the safety net of enhanced support or if you organization does not have the technical staff to be actively involved, you may want to consider a cloud hosting firm that specializes in support, such as Rackspace.
How do I translate my physical specs to the cloud?
This is a bit more technical topic, but chances are if you have a physical server and you know it, you are familiar enough with the concepts below. If you are unsure? Just ask!
Cloud isntances may seem very confusing. Even technically savy organizations often struggle to translate the physical world into the virtual world. Here are a few suggestions:
vCPUs = Virtual CPUs. When translating physical specs, think of these are 1 ghz slices of a process. So for exampple, if you have two (2) 2.0 ghz processors in your physical machine (a total of 4ghz of cpu) then you would likely need 4 vCPUs (4 x 1 ghz process slices).
Memory = memory translates nearly 1 to 1 from the physical world to the cloud
Storage = Storage in GB translates exactly, BUT you will want to note that in the cloud you can both very easily add storage, eliminating the need to "over buy" up front. However, you should note that backups usually take some of your storage space, which may not have happened in your physical world.
I see options for SQL and other databases, what do they mean? What if I already own a software license?
Wait, isn't that 6, and maybe 7 questions? Yes, here is a few more answers.
First of all, if you own or run any software including database, anti-virus, CRM, or others, you can use that software on a cloud instance just like it was a phyiscal server.
Each of the hosting providers generally offers three ways to access a database
A Windows server where you install SQL or another database tool yourself - this would be very similar to the physical server hosting model.
A Windows Server with SQL pre-installed - you essentially are "leasing" a license from the cloud provider. Many physical servers have this option as well, but the offer is much more common in the cloud hosting world.
An abstracted and shared database access - Similar to shared hosting, this is where you don't get your own copy of SQL, but rather get access to a database (SQL or another technology) that is run separately from your cloud server. This option is great if you are building a ground up application from the start in the cloud, and you don't fear needing to migrate to a different hosting provider in the future. Since most people reading this have an existing application, we would not recommend this option.
We hope this helps answers some of the questions you may have. Now is a great time to consider moving to cloud hosting. Or, more likely if you are in a situation where you need or are forced to reconsider your hosting options, we'd definitely recommend looking at cloud hosting.
To learn more about Bluetube and our expertise with helping clients migrate to cloud hosting, visit our hosting migrations page.
To learn more about Bluetube and our award winning mobile, tablet, and responsive web design and development projects, please visit our portfolio.