There are all sorts of different methods available to put your data out to the web.

You can spend a ton of money building servers and integrated software and keep everything locally controlled, or you can farm that work out. Cloud hosting let’s you farm out the work and save money, but what is cloud hosting?

Cloud hosting is basically just moving your data from a central system to a network solution. This has quite a few benefits.

The major benefit is cost. By cloud hosting you’ll be able to treat your server usage like a power bill. You just pay for what you use. Think about the difference in cost here. If you had to generate your own power you’d need a generator that costs thousands of dollars to run your business. Instead you pay the power company a couple hundred dollars based on the amount you use. Cloud hosting works the same way. By going with cloud hosting you avoid the expense of all the hardware.

The only real downside to cloud hosting is a business runs the risk of being captured by the server company. This means that if a business develops all its software for use on a particular cloud host it might not be easily moved to another company.

The benefits of cloud hosting outweigh the negative.  Not only does cloud hosting allow for a reduction in hardware costs but it’s also a decentralized system. A decentralized system means users can log on and grab information from anywhere. They aren’t tied into a local intranet. This does raise a security concern but one that’s easily dealt with available encryption software.

So what is cloud hosting? It boils down to just being a cheaper way to get your business online. You limit fixed costs, and have the ability to log on from anywhere. The benefits outweigh any negatives as a business solution.

If you are looking into web hosting solutions, you may have heard that there are Linux and Windows based web-hosting options out there. So what does that mean and what’s the difference? Well, we’re going to take a quick look.

Windows

Microsoft created the Windows based server platform. They also own it which means you need to pay them (in one way or another) to use it if you are building a server.

Linux

The Linux based server platform is open source and in most cases is free to use when you are building a server. With this said, you will still have to purchase a hosting package to use on a Linux system and in many cases there is little to no difference in the price of Linux or Widows.

Do You Need One Or The Other?

One question many people have is if they run a Windows machine, whether they need to have a Windows server host. That is not necessary. Either type of hosting platform will work just fine.

Why Does it Matter Which One You Choose?

When choosing a server platform, the type of things you should be thinking of is what you will need to use that server for. Are you going to be running a lot of PHP files? POP3? Or are you going to want to use things like FrontPage to publish websites or have Windows Streaming Media. While Linux will work just fine for the first options, once you want to be able to use Windows based applications, the Windows based platform will be an easier and more convenient choice.