Do you know the difference between cloud hosting and traditional hosting? One is managed internally and the other is managed by an external provider, offering flexibility and high levels of data security. Knowing the benefits of cloud hosting could massively improve efficiency across your business.

So why is cloud hosting better than traditional hosting? Cloud hosting services provide a secure, fast, and easy to manage hosting alternative to traditional hosting. Managed by the hosting provider, cloud hosting doesn’t rely on a single hosting location which reduces the risk of failure. 

Read on to learn more about cloud hosting and why it is better than traditional hosting.

What are the Benefits of Cloud Hosting Services?

When compared to traditional hosting, cloud hosting has a myriad of benefits including reduced costs, ease of use, and faster loading times. Access is available against multiple devices, creating opportunities for collaboration in the workplace with both employees and clients. Recent events mean more employees are working remotely, cloud hosting improves this experience by allowing easy access to your business’s systems from any location.

Below we go into more detail about the main benefits of cloud hosting and how it can enhance your business. 

Save on Resources

Cloud hosting can help your business save on both money and time as the hosting provider will maintain the server for you. As your business expands, it will likely require more storage, software, and hardware so cloud hosting is the ideal option to ensure the whole operation runs smoothly. Your chosen cloud hosting providers will perform updates, monitor data backups, and keep track of your storage usage, expanding resources and performance as required.

Backups and Data Loss Recovery

Cloud hosting providers backup data often, ensuring that you can access previous versions where required. Files are automatically saved directly to the cloud so you and your employees don’t have to worry about losing hours of important work.

Security

There are multiple layers to the security of cloud hosting servers, including a remote location only accessible to high level members of the service provider team. Firewalls, identity management, and encryption are other levels of protection that your cloud hosting provider may offer. These steps help to protect against data loss, human error and natural disasters.

Team Collaboration

As access is available across multiple devices, documents become collaborative, increasing productivity and team morale. Having the ability to work together on a document in real time, saves time sending them back and forth via emails. Important files are protected against loss with automatic saving to the cloud. Additionally, clients can easily be added to documents for instant collaboration.

Reduced Impact on the Environment

Cloud hosting providers ensure that their servers run at maximum capacity to reduce negative impact on the environment. Due to the scalability of cloud hosting, it is available to any business and removes the need to maintain traditional in-house servers.

Faster Loading Times

Unlike traditional hosting, cloud hosting doesn’t rely on one point of access, allowing faster loading times accessed via the internet on your device. This will improve overall efficiency in the workplace as employees can focus on getting the work done faster without becoming frustrated by slow loading times on websites, applications and documents.

Storage

With cloud hosting, you can store a large amount of files in one convenient location that all members of your business can access. You can even limit access to certain people or require a password to access certain documents and applications, increasing security. 

Are There Any Risks to Using Cloud Hosting Services?

There are a few risks to using cloud hosting services including vendor lock-in, which is where your business could feel it would be too difficult to transfer to a different cloud hosting provider due to costs or insufficient knowledge and skill within the business. However, you can counteract this issue by gathering as much information about what the provider offers before initiation, to minimise the need for transferring hosting services in the future. 

Although it doesn’t happen often due to the amount of protection against downtime, cloud servers can experience unexpected problems such as power outages or reboots. Unfortunately these issues will be out of your control but you can plan in advance to ensure that your data is protected against loss or damage.

What is Traditional Hosting?

Traditional hosting is where websites are located on a single server usually managed internally by the IT team within a business, potentially requiring specialist team members for the job. Traditional hosting can require a lot of time and money for maintenance compared to cloud hosting which the providers will manage. 

There are a few different types of traditional hosting for websites including shared hosting where a server is shared by multiple websites, meaning the cost can be spread by the website owners but the amount of traffic across the site may increase loading times. VPS hosting, also known as Virtual Private Server hosting, is a small-scale and cost effective hosting for websites with low traffic. The other option is dedicated hosting which is used for one website only, meaning it can be costly, so it may be best suited to larger businesses. If you want to find out more about dedicated servers and their benefits, read our recent blog post.

Is Cloud Hosting Safe?

Cloud hosting is often considered less safe than other hosting services as it is not controlled directly by companies, however, this is not the case. Cloud hosting services have many layers to its security measures. The main server is located in an obscure location that most employees are unaware of. Only high authority employees are able to access the building, and only when necessary. 

All data is encrypted, meaning only required users can access it and cannot be intercepted by cyber thieves or hackers. Additionally, data is readily available at all times on any device by approved users, ensuring GDPR compliance is met. As the data is all stored in one easily accessible location, it can be removed or updated upon request from the original owner.

Cloud Hosting Services at 777 Networks

Our expert team at 777 Networks will seamlessly migrate all of your current systems to an entirely cloud-based computer system custom-made specifically for your business. Reducing your costs and time spent on maintaining your server, cloud hosting is the future. 

Contact us today to access the many benefits of cloud hosting services.

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