Although there continues to be a lot of buzz surrounding the benefits of cloud hosting, Amazon\u2019s recent cloud outage rattled nerves and left many business owners that depend on cloud hosting platforms to support online ventures very apprehensive.\u00a0 With popular sites such as Reddit, Quora and HootSuite being knocked offline during the cloud outage, Amazon definitely suffered the consequences of the unpredictable outage, however was able to recover.\u00a0 It\u2019s vital for businesses depending on cloud hosting services such as those offered by Amazon to take a pragmatic stance and understand the cons of cloud hosting that are intertwined with the pros.<\/p>\n
Attentiveness to Cloud Hosting<\/strong><\/p>\n While many in the web hosting industry swear that cloud hosting is the next best thing since sliced bread, the simple truth is that the hosting environment isn\u2019t fail proof.\u00a0 Although cloud hosting tends to be more reliable and offer impeccable redundancy rates, business owners need to take into consideration that it\u2019s not an immaculate hosting solution.<\/p>\n In the case of Amazon\u2019s cloud outage, business owners utilizing the cloud services failed to take advantage of the provider\u2019s geographic redundancy, which otherwise would have prevented valuable downtime as a direct result from Amazon\u2019s outage.\u00a0 \u00a0It\u2019s essential for business owners opting for cloud services to always remain attentive to new and existing features offered by the provider as well as monitoring network uptime to prepare contingency plans if the server(s) goes down.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Ensuring Compliance<\/strong><\/p>\n Cloud hosting providers are not exempt from adhering to specific compliance requirements.\u00a0 This is especially true for those businesses that handle sensitive data such as credit card information, medical records, or financial transactions.\u00a0 Providers are entirely responsible for the unambiguous regulations that govern specific data.\u00a0 For example, a cloud provider hosting confidential software should have the appropriate certification verifying their respective systems meet the necessary requirements.\u00a0 Ensuring compliance isn\u2019t option; it\u2019s mandatory.<\/p>\n Criteria Checklist<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s particularly important for small business owners to create a checklist of specific criteria that their cloud hosting provider should meet.\u00a0 Such criteria should be based on server reliability, security, and compliance.\u00a0 Also, it\u2019s imperative to have a contingency plan devised in the event of an unforeseeable outage.\u00a0 Developing a backup plan is vital for those sites that depend on online sales as a source of income. \u00a0For business owners considering moving physical infrastructure to a cloud platform, it\u2019s recommended to opt for a provider with more than one data center in the case of natural disaster as well as human error.<\/p>\n Negotiating Service Agreements<\/strong><\/p>\n As tantalizing as it may sound, cloud providers can\u2019t guarantee that their service won\u2019t go down at any given time.\u00a0 Usually such alluring appeals are found nestled deep within the service agreement detailing the provider\u2019s level of service.\u00a0 Many business owners are duped into signing the agreement under the terms of minimal penalties applicable for downtime on behalf of the provider.\u00a0 This means a server could be down for an indefinite amount of time with no reimbursement of lost sales; therefore, it\u2019s essential to negotiate the terms of the agreement to allow for credit or free service if the provider fails to deliver hosting services for an extended amount of time.\u00a0 Remember to get it in writing; otherwise it\u2019s a lost cause.<\/p>\n Predicted Market Saturation<\/strong><\/p>\n As with the infinite number of shared hosting providers saturating the market and devouring competition, expect the same growth forecast among cloud providers.\u00a0 With the growing number of cloud providers, choosing one that best accommodates hosting needs is becoming more difficult with all of the available choices.<\/p>\n Small business owners should do their homework before selecting a cloud provider to secure a host that meets, or exceeds, all of the criteria on their checklists to ensure the best cloud services to meet a diverse array of needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Although there continues to be a lot of buzz surrounding the benefits of cloud hosting, Amazon\u2019s recent cloud outage rattled nerves and left many business owners that depend on cloud…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2427,359,358,2796],"class_list":["post-1925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-random-stuff","tag-amazon","tag-cloud","tag-cloud-hosting","tag-compliance"],"views":157,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}