With the quick rise in Cloud Computing use cases and user interest it wasn’t unusual for hosting to be done in the cloud as well. All the benefits of the cloud platform like flexibility, scalability and on-demand resources can be applied effectively to web hosting services and make it a much better alternative to traditional services.

To understand this better, we first look at what cloud computing is? Cloud Computing is the cluster of computers or servers clubbed together and the resources are offered in virtualized portions as requested by the users. This is supplied over the internet under the software as a service (SaaS) model of cloud computing.

Even though the data can be accessed by the users from their own devices which are connected to the internet the data is actually stored at a different location in servers in a data center which is secure and safe. This allows users to do away with the need of maintaining on-premise storage equipments and the need to employ costly administrators for the same leading to reduced costs.

Hosting in the Cloud

We now know how cloud computing is done now let’s take a look at web hosting in the cloud.

Ideally, the web hosting provider provides resources which are available on its server for hosting the websites of the clients. These resources are limited to the extent of the capacity of the server which often results in overloading and eventual crashing of sites. To address this issue you could probably switch to a dedicated server with a much higher resource stock and end up paying a fortune or keep facing issues time and again. But with the cloud you have ample of resources up to the extent of the combined capacity of all the servers in the cloud which is often quite high. The resources are high and the load is balanced equally between all the servers in the cloud allowing you maximum uptime and better site performance.

Now, when you get resources without interruption or downtime and the cost incurred is based on the amount of usage which brings down the unnecessary cost involved in having higher resources which often go unused. This makes cloud hosting server a better option which gives necessary resources at low cost and ensures high uptime as well.

eNlight is an intelligent, auto scalable cloud that calculates the need for additional resources and the need to withdraw them as and when required, therefore providing a truly scalable environment. Equipped with an intuitive control panel, customers can easily manage their entire eNlight cloud including billing tasks, performance monitoring and creating virtual machines (VMs).

Let us see how you can use the eNlight control panel to add new VMs to your cloud. Once you complete the payment process, your account will be created and you will receive the login details to the eNlight panel. Once you login, you can start creating a VM in eNlight.

How can I create a new VM from the eNlight control panel?
It is very easy to create a new VM in eNlight. Click on “Create VM” button on right hand side of the eNlight panel.
In the box that appears next, you will be able to specify the Display Name, select ‘Template’ (operating system), define scaling of VM, define max. RAM and CPU.

Once you enter all the details according to your requirements, “Create VM”. A pop up window will ask for confirmation of the new VM creation. Press “OK” to confirm.

Next, another screen will appear with the login details of your VM. Please save these details.

What other features are included in the eNlight panel to manage my VMs?
You have complete freedom with the panel to create, start, shut down, delete and restart VMs as and when your requirements change.

Is there a limit on the number of cloud servers I can create?
Absolutely not! You can create as many VMs as you wish on your eNlight cloud server. We have set a limit on the number of virtual servers a user can create on a single day; there is no restriction on the count of VMs that you can create.

How much control do I have on my virtual servers?
You have absolute control over your eNlight cloud virtual servers. You can manage your VMs as you want.

How can I check the resource usage of my VMs?
The intuitive control panel will let you see the live resources allocated to your server in the control panel. The usage stastics are updated every 5 minutes, you can check those logs for each of your VMs.

Can I create virtual servers for my customers? Can I monitor those VMs too?
Yes, you can create VMs for your customers with appropriate display names- and through the eNlight panel, you can monitor their usage as well.

What if I accidently delete one of my Virtual Servers? Will the files still be available?
Please be careful with deleting your VMs. We might keep the VMs for a short time, but we cannot guarantee the recovery of files from the deleted VMs. Also, in case we are able to recover the deleted VM, you will be charged for the time during which the VM was in deleted state.

What will be the speed of the each VM of eNlight cloud?
Each virtual machine will have hardware dependent CPU capabilities. Moreover the current setup has Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5660 @ 2.80GHz each. We assign a certain number of VCPU to each virtual server. Every VCPU is of same speed as of the host CPU.

Will there be any hidden costs?
No. eNlight cloud works on pay-per-consume model, so you pay for only what you use. You will only be billed for new virtual server creation. Other than that, any third party software or additional IPs will be billed separately.

eNlight Enterprise Cloud

The shared cloud is offered to promote affordable cloud hosting that is accessible to users of all abilities and businesses of any size so that they are able to reap the benefits of the reliability and security that the cloud platform can provide. eNlight cloud hosting from Bodhost utilizes one of the core principles of promoting affordability in the shared cloud – the pay-per-use concept; the definition of ‘pay-per-use’ in this context is that you will be paying for the resources that you wish to have allocated to your server or are using and nothing beyond that. Furthermore, the eNlight platform allows for the expansion of virtual machines with just a few clicks so that resources are assigned immediately; with this feature we can assure you that no downtime will be incurred when adjusting the resource arrangement on one of your virtual machines.

Offering low unit prices for each of the resources that form an eNlight virtual machine is another feather in the crown of the platform; although affordability can be achieved by allowing customers to specify the units that they require of each individual resource, it is important to offer competitive resource pricing so that even customers with low budgets are able to obtain a reasonably powerful VM for the price. The major benefits of the enterprise cloud hosting can also be whittled down to:

• A 99.95% uptime guarantee is provided with all Bodhost enterprise cloud hosting plans because the architecture of the cloud introduces a high level of redundancy that ensures that there are no single points of failure in the network or hardware architecture
• As all cloud servers communicate with one another via an internal network, you can be assured that your data is hosted in a secure environment and that it will be very hard for hackers to intercept these communications
• The eNlight platform can be managed directly from our web interface where you can order additional resources for your existing VMs as well as create new virtual machines to ensure that your demands are constantly fulfilled.

More often than not even the largest of businesses won’t be able to fully utilize what a private cloud can offer in terms of capacity and the shared cloud often has more than enough clout to offer – Bodhost is always adding additional capacity in the form of extra hardware to ensure that our eNlight clusters are able to improve the performance of their virtual machines then necessary. Auto-scaling is also available for situations where demand can’t be predicted and where you may not be in a position manually increase the resources of your virtual machine(s); auto-scaling will automatically allocate the resources that your VMs require to remain stable when they are put under a high load, with these additional resources then withdrawn once demand subsides.

Web Hosting vs. Cloud Computing

As an enterprise web hosting company, Bodhost is able to offer one of the best shared cloud platforms in the US and we believe that our cloud hosting plans are some of the most affordable and offer a number of additional benefits over traditional web hosting plans. Even though the cloud may be a more expensive endeavor for some, the additional cost is there to cover the extra hardware that is used to provide a stable hosting environment; traditional web hosting plans that use single-server configurations often fail to meet an uptime level of 99.95% because there is no redundancy in place to handle server failures.

Cloud computing as a technology is being slowly adopted by businesses of all sizes because it allows for the centralized storage of documents and application data so that users are able to create a consistent experience between all of the devices that they use to access the cloud, whether these are computers or mobile devices. In the context of web hosting, the cloud introduces the concept of having full control of your virtual machines along with other external factors; IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) platforms such as eNlight not only provide you with virtual machines, but these VMs can be adapted as you see as necessary and you can adjust external settings and setup features including firewalls and vLANs between eNlight VMs.

For an unmatchable enterprise cloud hosting experience, you should look into Bodhost’s eNlight hosting services and see how USA cloud hosting can save your business money.

Cloud web hosting can be used for the hosting of powerful virtual machines that can mimic the performance of a dedicated server to some extent and the cloud is being seen as a more affordable option to dedicated server hosting by businesses of all sizes. The eNlight platform used by Bodhost for enterprise cloud hosting allows you to specify the precise units of resources that you would like to form the heart of your VM; this is designed as a method that can provide good value for money because you will only ever be paying for the resources that you want and are using, whilst if a virtual machine is going to be replacing a physical server then you can configure the resources of the VM to match those of the original dedicated server.

Bodhost offers ones of the most reliable cloud platforms available, with our eNlight hosting services being accompanied by a 99.95% uptime guarantee so you can be assured that your servers and website will always be accessible when you need them to be. Our cloud clusters are designed with the following architecture to maximize the availability of resources and uptime:

• The storage of content on your virtual machines is delegated to central SANs (Storage Area Networks) that are designed to provide a more secure data hosting service
• Your virtual machine will pull resources from a central pool that is formed of resources from multiple servers, therefore meaning that even if one server in the cloud crashes, the uptime and availability of your virtual machine(s) won’t be compromised
• We offer auto-scaling for times when your virtual machines may be running low on resources due to excessive loads, this means that resources will be automatically allocated so that the load can be managed properly and the stability of your VM isn’t compromised.

Bodhost offers eNlight hosting in two different forms: you can choose enterprise cloud hosting, which will enable you to make use of the shared cloud for affordable cloud hosting and is the ideal solution if you aren’t looking to use many virtual machines; we can also offer larger businesses an eNlight-based private cloud hosting solution that will offer you the same benefits as the shared cloud, albeit with full control over the entire cloud and greater room to create powerful virtual machines.

If you are concerned about your demands from cloud hosting being too much for a shared cloud environment, as may be the case if you are wanting to migrate multiple dedicated servers to the cloud, then you should contact the Bod sales team who can provide you with advice on how to go about moving from dedicated hosting to the cloud.

Web Hosting Migration

Once you have selected the most appropriate cloud service for your needs from Bodhost, you will need to begin the process of planning the migration of the data from your dedicated and on-site servers to identical cloud virtual machines. By choosing the cloud over physical servers, you will be able to introduce cost savings into your business, as the cloud will be cheaper to run. The following methods are seen as best practice when migrating servers of any kind:

• Capturing an image of the hard drive of the server at the beginning of the process ensures that this can be used to image a new virtual machine so that all settings and files are transferred over and are available once the new virtual machine has been provisioned professionally
• If you are going to be using a web hosting control panel such as cPanel at both ends of the migration process then these applications generally have their own migration facilities built-in that will transfer data between servers for you automatically and will complete the account setup process automatically
• It is important for you to take a full back up of the original data before you begin the migration process because if an issue occurs during the data migration then you could be faced with an issue where the data and servers at both ends becomes corrupted, the result of which could be mass data loss.

If you are unsure of how to pursue the migration of your physical servers into the cloud then Bodhost’s 24×7 support team are here to assist you in any way they can.