Updated: 8 July 2024
Contributors: Stephanie Susnjara, Ian Smalley
Cloud hosting is an infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offering that makes applications and websites accessible by pooling computing and storage resources from a network of virtual and physical cloud servers operated by a third-party provider.
From an enterprise IT perspective, the flexibility of rapid deployment for evolving business needs is critical to both the client and the cloud service provider. In a traditional in-house environment with a long history of IT implementations, it is not easy for an organization to deploy a new solution without significantly altering existing IT infrastructure. Cloud hosting provides the options and advantages of quicker solution deployment at a much lower cost of implementation and operations than those associated with owning and managing data centers.
As organizations—from startups to global enterprises—seek new digital solutions to innovate and stay competitive, cloud hosting and other cloud computing services play a crucial role in ongoing cloud adoption. In a report from Acumen Research and Consulting, the global computing market size accounted for USD 495.3 billion in 2022 and is estimated to achieve a market size of USD 2,495.2 billion by 2032, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.8% from 2023 to 2032.1
Strategic application modernization is one key to transformational success that can boost annual revenue and lower maintenance and running costs.
Register for the guide on hybrid cloud
Unlike traditional hosting, which uses a single server to deploy applications and websites, cloud hosting relies on a network of connected virtual and physical cloud servers, ensuring greater flexibility and scalability. For example, if one server in the cloud is at capacity, the cloud service provider (CSP) can run your website or application on another server.
Cloud hosting relies on virtualization, which uses software to create an abstraction layer over computer hardware, enabling the division of a single computer's hardware components—such as processors, memory and storage—into multiple virtual machines (VMs). Virtualization is fundamental to cloud computing because it enables efficient use of resources, allowing cloud users to purchase only the computing resources they need—when they need them—and scale those resources cost-effectively.
Users can access most cloud hosting services through an easy-to-use, web-based user interface for software, hardware and service requests, which are instantaneously delivered. Even the software and hardware updates can happen automatically.
The nonfunctional requirements of scalability, reliability and high availability remain the same in both in-house and cloud hosting approaches. However, cloud hosting provides a broader pool of IT resources to deliver these requirements with a higher degree of confidence.
Scalability, reliability and high availability can also be automatically tuned to an organization's solution requirements. This capability is called application-aware service provisioning, implemented through software-defined environments (SDEs). SDEs automatically and dynamically provision compute, network and data storage resources according to application needs, helping maximize efficiencies and optimize services.
Applications and solutions are deployed on a cloud network rather than an on-premises single server.
Resources scale to satisfy user needs.
Organizations pay only for the resources that they use.
Cloud hosting can support structured query language (SQL), including MySQL, or NoSQL databases.
Solutions are automated and controlled using APIs, web portals and mobile apps.
All the leading cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and IBM Cloud®, offer cloud hosting, which encompasses these types of cloud-based deployment models:
A public cloud is a type of cloud computing in which a third-party service provider makes computing resources available to users over the public internet. These resources can include ready-to-use software applications, individual virtual machines (VMs), complete enterprise-grade infrastructures and development platforms.
Private cloud is a cloud computing environment in which all hardware and software resources are dedicated exclusively to and accessible only by a single customer.
Hybrid cloud combines and unifies public cloud, private cloud and on-premises infrastructure to create a single, flexible, cost-optimal IT infrastructure. Today, many enterprise businesses rely on a hybrid multicloud approach, which integrates public cloud, private cloud and on-premises infrastructure with cloud-based services from at least two cloud service providers.
Managed cloud services are the complete or partial management and control of a client's cloud resources. The purpose of a managed cloud is to outsource cloud management to an “as a service” option. This option allows organizations to make sure that cloud resources are running well while avoiding the costs of hiring a team to manage them. Depending on an organization's business and technology needs, a managed service provider's responsibilities can span cloud migration, optimization, security, configuration, system upgrades and more.
These are some of the top managed cloud services.
IaaS is on-demand access to IT resources, including cloud-hosted physical and virtual servers, virtual machines, cloud storage and network—essentially all the back-end IT infrastructure needed for running applications and workloads in the cloud.
PaaS is a cloud computing model that provides customers with a complete cloud platform including hardware, software and infrastructure. This allows for developing, running and managing applications without the cost, complexity and inflexibility associated with building and maintaining that platform on premises. Red Hat® Open Shift® is a popular PaaS built around Docker containers and Kubernetes, which is an open-source container orchestration solution that automates deployment, scaling, load balancing and more for container-based applications.
SaaS is ready-to-use, cloud-hosted application software based on a subscription model. Today, SaaS is the most common public cloud computing service and the dominant software delivery model. In a report from Statista, the software as a service (SaaS) market was estimated to be worth approximately 197 billion US dollars in 2023 and is projected to reach 247 billion US dollars in 2024.2
Serverless is an application development and execution model that enables developers to build and run application code without provisioning or managing servers or back-end infrastructure.
Cloud hosting is a type of web hosting that relies on virtualization and remote servers. Other types of hosting include shared hosting, virtual private servers (VPS) and dedicated hosting.
Shared hosting is a multitenant model in which the hosting provider hosts your website and several others (cotenants) on a single computer. Everyone shares the CPU, memory, cloud storage space and web server software (the software that delivers web content to browsers that request it).
Shared hosting is the least expensive type of hosting, which makes it a popular choice for nontechnical users, bloggers who require WordPress hosting and budget-conscious startups. Since everyone shares resources, shared hosting can result in slower load times than cloud or dedicated hosting. However, shared hosting is also the most affordable type of hosting.
Since cloud hosting has unlimited scalability, it is preferred over shared hosting for large websites with high traffic volumes. For instance, cloud hosting ensures high performance for e-commerce sites as it delivers reliable user experiences.
Dedicated hosting is a single-tenant service that gives you exclusive access to your own physical server hardware, so you have complete control over the server's performance, security and resources. Organizations in industries dealing with sensitive data or transactions (for example, financial or government institutions) frequently use dedicated hosting as it can be customized to meet security or regulatory needs and so on. On the other hand, cloud hosting servers don't require the same CapEx expenses to set up dedicated hosting hardware and are a less expensive option.
VPS hosting is a form of multitenant cloud hosting in which virtualized server resources are made available to a user through a provider. While the VPS shares a hypervisor and underlying hardware, each VPS runs its own operating system (OS). Each customer shares the physical server's isolated resources, so each client has access to their own dedicated resources.
VPS hosting lies somewhere between shared hosting and dedicated hosting. While it is a form of multitenancy, customers still have complete control over the OS, software, etc. VPS is a popular choice for hosting custom web applications or web-based software (for example, gaming, video streaming).
Cloud hosting systems have evolved to provide businesses with simplified and centralized IT services and management capabilities. Cloud hosting offers these benefits:
- Flexibility: Traditional hosting services offer limited bandwidth. Cloud hosting scales to accommodate traffic spikes or seasonal demands.
- Resource efficiency: Cloud server hosting provides excellent resource allocation because it relies on multiple servers for optimal website performance.
- Pay-as-you-go model: Cloud hosting is cost-effective because users only pay for the resources they use by the month or hour. This pricing setup differs from the flat rates of traditional hosting.
- Reliability and uptime: Hardware failures do not cause downtime because sites and applications are hosted on a network of servers. Traffic travels across separate network interfaces, where it is segregated and secured. Multiple servers provide better uptime as multiple servers translate into a single point of failure.
- Availability and disaster recovery: Cloud hosting provides high availability and disaster recovery by using backup systems, failover processes and monitoring solutions to reduce downtime. This helps ensure that applications and websites stay up and running in the face of any disruptions—from equipment failures to cyberattacks.
- Access to cutting-edge technology: Cloud hosting providers offer tools such as artificial intelligence (AI), including natural language processing (NLP) for building cognitive applications and creating security and compliance layers.
- Ease of management and support: Many CSPs offer additional specialist services to help manage and customize the cloud-hosted environment.
Considered a shared responsibility by both the client organization and its service provider, cloud security refers to a broad range of policies, procedures and technology designed to address external and internal threats to business security. Cloud hosting providers offer robust security measures to protect against malicious actors or threats, including firewalls, identity management and access tools, secure sockets layers(SSL), data loss prevention (DLP), regular security updates and 24/7 monitoring. Also, cloud data centers have robust physical security in place, such as guards and surveillance systems to prevent unauthorized access.
Powerful, scalable web hosting servers feature unlimited, no-cost backhaul traffic across a private global network.
Dedicated server hosting from IBM is designed to provide total isolation, control and security for your heavy, mission-critical workloads.
Drive modern workloads faster and easier with preset instance profiles, rapid deployment and private network control in an agile public cloud environment. Choose multitenant or dedicated, add GPUs, and pay-as-you-use by the hour.
Learn how to select the right cloud infrastructure to run a workload? Explore the key criteria for choosing bare metal or virtual servers.
Discover how cloud computing enables businesses to use infrastructure and applications without installing and maintaining them on premises.
Explore how organizations successfully relocate their data, applications and workloads to a cloud infrastructure.
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is a form of cloud computing that delivers fundamental IT infrastructure resources like compute, servers, virtual machines, network and storage to consumers, over the internet and on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Learn about IaaS, PaaS and SaaS, which are the three most popular types of cloud service offerings. They are sometimes referred to as cloud service models or cloud computing service models.
Explore NoSQL, also referred to as “not only SQL” or “non-SQL”, which is an approach to database design. This approach enables the storage and querying of data outside the traditional structures found in relational databases.
Footnotes
All links reside outside ibm.com
1 Cloud Computing Market Size - Global Industry, Share, Analysis, Trends and Forecast 2023-2032, Acumen Research and Consulting, October 2023
2 Public cloud application services/software as a service (SaaS) end-user spending worldwide from 2015 to 2025, Statista, June 2024