Cloud Hosting vs. Cloud Computing

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Jeff Tormey

Cloud Computing and Cloud Hosting are different. Many have heard of Cloud Computing, but how is it different than Cloud Hosting? Here is the definition from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Hosting

Cloud computing describes computation, software, data access, and storage services that do not require end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services. Parallels to this concept can be drawn with the electricity grid where end-users consume power resources without full understanding of every component device in the grid required to provide said service.

Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture, autonomic and utility computing. Details are abstracted from end-users, who no longer have need for expertise in, or control over, the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them.^[1]

Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption, and delivery model for IT services based on Internet protocols, and it typically involves provisioning of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources.^[2]^[3] It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet.^[4] This frequently takes the form of web-based tools or applications that users can access and use through a web browser as if it were a program installed locally on their own computer.^[5]

Cloud Hosting — A type of internet hosting where the client leases virtualized, dynamically scalable infrastructure on an as-needed basis. Users frequently have the choice of operating system and other infrastructure components. Typically cloud hosting is self-service, billed hourly or monthly, and controlled via a web interface or API.

Cloud Hosting is a cost effective way for small business to benefit from scalable infrastructure at an affordable price.

Hybrid Cloud Solution Unveiled By StratoGen

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Karl Robinson

VMware hosting company StratoGen today announced the launch of its eagerly awaited hybrid cloud solution. Working with VMware, StratoGen are once again first to market with a solution that enables organisations to seamlessly move virtual machines from their own infrastructure into the StratoGen cloud.

For the first time organisations can integrate their in-house VMware infrastructure with that of their virtual datacentre hosted in the StratoGen public cloud. Moving virtual machines back and forth between both environments can be achieved in a single click. By complementing their own virtualised servers with on demand capacity from the StratoGen cloud, organisations can add significant performance and resilience benefits to their IT operations.

The solution is based on technology from VMware including vCloud Director and vCloud Connector.

Mark Lewis, Business Development Manager said “StratoGen have been working with VMware for some time with vCloud Connector and are hugely excited to be the first to offer these features. We are seeing a new generation of cloud user that is fully leveraging cloud capacity and this service is what they have been crying out for. The ability to take a virtual machine running on local hardware and seamlessly push it out onto the StratoGen cloud is amazing.”

Hosted VMware environments from StratoGen take the form of a virtual datacentre with a pool of available resources such as CPU, RAM, storage and firewalls. Organisations can easily build and deploy configurations that mirror their in-house platform, opening up a whole host of possibilities including disaster recovery and load balancing.

Karl Robinson, Managing Director commented “What we are now seeing is the next wave of innovation that will ensure cloud computing is dominant in the coming years. The ability to push workloads between clouds is a reality today and I’m delighted to say that StratoGen have been at the forefront of its development.”

For further information on VMware hosting from StratoGen visit http://www.stratogen.net/products/vmware-hosting.html

StratoGen is a leading VMware hosting company with a worldwide client base and award winning cloud platform. StratoGen hosted VMware products include a 100% uptime service level guarantee.

Next Generation Cloud Hosting Service Launched

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Karl Robinson

Leading VMware hosting provider StratoGen today announced the launch of a new generation of cloud hosting service based on VMware vCloud Director. SHARP™ empowers users to create entire virtual datacentres in the cloud complete with firewalls, networks and virtual machines from a simple web based portal.

Karl Robinson, Managing Director said “This is a stunning new service that turns the cloud hosting market upside down. Whilst first generation cloud hosting services have enabled users to build and configure simple virtual machines, the StratoGen SHARP™ platform hands the full power of our cloud infrastructure over to the user in the form of a virtual datacentre. Within their datacentre customers can build routed networks, deploy and configure firewalls with NAT and DHCP, build vApps and of course deploy highly resilient virtual machines on the VMware hypervisor.”

StratoGen are the first major hosting provider to offer services based on VMware vCloud Director.

David Elliott, Technical Director commented “As a VMware partner, StratoGen were lucky enough to be part of the vCloud Director beta program so we have been working with this software for many months. After our own extensive testing program, we have been hugely impressed with the reliability and sheer power of the product. Advanced features include the ability to create VPNs and load balancing solutions using vShield, which you simply can’t do with any other cloud hosting solution.”

Virtual machines built on the platform can scale to 8 CPUs with 96GB RAM and run virtually any operating system. In addition, pre-built virtual appliances from the VMware virtual appliance marketplace are supported.

The StratoGen service also includes the ability to import virtual machines from existing VMware environments, allowing for a seamless migration from private clouds or other hosting services.

For further information on VMware hosting from StratoGen visit http://www.stratogen.net/prodcucts/vmware-hosting.html

To mark its launch, StratoGen are offering a free 15 day trial of the service.

StratoGen is a leading VMware hosting company with a worldwide client base and award winning cloud platform. StratoGen hosted VMware products include a 100% uptime service level guarantee.

cloudControl Platform-as-a-Service in a Nutshell

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Thomas Ruland

Thomas Ruland of cloudControl, has written an article for us explaining Platform-as-a-Service (Paas) and to offer our readers a free trial of their PaaS solutions.

A new web-project often is accompanied by new challenges and lots of work that has to be taken care of even before you can get started with the project itself. Web servers need to be set up, matching packages to be selected and a continuous cycle of back-ups and maintenance to be initiated. Every new project includes those labour intensive steps – but let’s ask ourselves: We live in 2011, do we really need to do those annoying tasks ourselves? Well, we don’t, because today platform-as-a-service (PaaS) providers offer ready-to-use services for web developers to build their applications.

Traditional hosting offers tangible servers, with all the needed set up and configuration work. PaaS in comparison offers one fully equipped platform with resources ready to use from the Cloud. This environment offers numerous advantages, the five most important of which are:

No administrative hassle
Automatic scaling
Pay-per-use billing
One platform
Developing with teams

Each of the above points is explored in more detail below.

1. No administrative hassle

Most PaaS providers offer fully maintained and specifically installed components that don’t need to be installed or kept-up-to date by the user. Maintenance and backups are performed by the provider, so the developer can focus on the essentials: developing his web applications.

2. Automatic scaling

With conventional hosting, traffic peaks are something to be afraid of – not so for PaaS. PaaS providers deliver their computing power from the Cloud by being able to add hundreds of servers to their resource pool within seconds. So if your application has a peak, the PaaS provider just gives you more power and the peak is taken care of. Most providers also publish where their servers are physically located at.

3. Pay-per-use billing

A big advantage of PaaS is to allow customers to only pay for the resources they actually did consume. If an application consumes few resources, it costs just a bit. If a customer has a complex CMS with lots of users more resources will be assigned to it so it costs more. At any time the application performs perfectly and the customer is satisfied.

4. One single platform

As a web developer, one often has multiple customers and hosting provider, with several different log-in credentials. With a PaaS solution, you can rely on a single platform for developing, testing and hosting your projects. And the best part about it is that you can not only use the platform for one of your customers, but for all of them.

5. Web development in teams

With PaaS, you can simply add additional developers to your applications. No more long explanations via e-mail or chats to get some help or advice. PaaS enables being team-ready within seconds.

Platform-as-a-Service from cloudControl

When searching for a suitable PaaS provider, there is a lot to be taken into consideration. Until now, there has been no single vendor who was able to fully implement all five advantages. The largest vendors in the market still have major constraints in their solutions, such as lock-in effects, lacking PHP support, or data privacy concerns.

The new cloudControl PHP platform-as-a-Service solution deals with those issues and provides an excellent basis for the development and hosting of complex PHP applications such as online stores, content management systems or web-based business applications (Software-as-a-Service). The PaaS solution provided by cloudControl will take care of all labor-intensive tasks related to administration, scaling and reliability, so that developers can fully concentrate on developing their apps.

Unlike other PaaS providers such as Google and Microsoft, cloudControl relies on proven LAMP stack components in order to avoid lock-in effects. Via command-line client, developers can easily control the platform and expand the usability by employing add-ons (such as MySQL, Memcache or MongoDB) from cloudControl’s marketplace. cloudControl ensures computing power by using Amazon EC2 Compute Units.

Fair Pricing Model

The pricing model of cloudControl employs the premises to be fair and developer-friendly. For an example, there is no minimum contract period or questionable terms of use. The billing units at cloudControl are called “boxes”. Each “box” can process 2 PHP requests simultaneously. The performance of each box equals to a quarter of an Amazon EC2 Compute Unit. This, at first, seems not to be much, but the boxes only serve dynamic requests. All other requests, such as pictures or Java Script files, are answered by the webserver (with Varnish cache also being active). The billing depends on the resources being consumed, additional add-ons, such as MySQL or Memcached, are available in multiple sizes.

Free Trial

Those who are interested can get started with the cloudControl PHP cloud right now and try out their PaaS solution for free. After a quick set-up of the working environment, the first test application is online within a few minutes. cloudControl also offers a free trail account for developers, which includes a free box for every application and a 5 MB database.

cloudControl was awarded the 2009 hosting award by eco and is a listed Amazon AWS solution providee. Click here for more information on cloudControl cloud hosting.