Are you establishing a new digital product or startup? Be it an app, website, or SaaS, managed cloud server hosting is most likely somewhere in your tech stack for optimal performance. For a lot of non-technical founders, cloud hosting is abstract, confusing, and full of jargon for non-technical business founders.
This guide will allow you to make smarter decisions, understand the basic components of cloud (cloud VPS server hosting) architecture, and communicate with the tech team or providers confidently.
What is cloud hosting and its components?
Imagine your app or website is a retail storefront. Traditional hosting systems are akin to single storefront leasing—limited to one location. Cloud hosting, on the other hand, is akin to a retail chain with multiple outlets per location. In these scenarios, if one outlet goes down, others can compensate.
Simply put, cloud hosting allows your online product to take advantage of several connected servers working in tandem. Unlike the traditional single-server hosting, this method is more efficient on speed, scalability, and uptime.
Why to Prioritize Cloud Hosting As A Startup Founder
Though you may not program or develop infrastructure, understanding cloud hosting may prove valuable to you in numerous ways.
- – Managing expenses
- – Commanding attention from technology partners
- – Extracting information on application metrics, scaling, and overall performance
- – Comprehending pertinent duties, risks (security, data backups, service level agreements), and responsibilities
You don’t need to know every detail, but understanding the general framework mitigates the risks of poor judgment and helps in decision-making.
The Visual Breakdown of the Cloud Hosting Architecture
With cloud hosting, think of it in layers and components. Imagine it as a multi-tiered system working in unison to achieve a seamless user experience.
1. Frontend (User Interface)
This includes mobile applications, websites, and dashboards.
- Why it matters: CDNs, offered with cloud servers, accelerate the performance of applications by serving static files, which include images, styles, and stylesheets.
2. Backend (Application Logic)
In this component, all business logic is running, captured in processes (like user actions), and data interactions occur.
- Why It Matters: The backend is indispensable from a business perspective, as it retrieves the core operations for the business, like search, payment, and user log-in. These processes, rather than information hosting, are what make an application, as opposed to a website.
3. Database Layer (Storage & Retrieval)
This is the advanced business intelligence (BI) for user accounts, products, and transaction data, answering queries like, What are the structured data assets? Hosting can be done through cloud-based managed data services or self-hosting. Data can be secured with encryption, access controls, and data backups.
- Why It Matters: An application that is sluggish because of a poorly structured architecture can frustrate users very quickly.
4. Load Balancer (Traffic Manager)
This functions as a smart traffic cop by distributing user requests to several servers to prevent one server from being overwhelmed.
- Why It Matters: Your app is kept online always, even when traffic is heavy. This happens in viral events or flash sales.
5. Autoscaling and Redundancy (On-Demand Resources)
Scaling automatically according to demand is one of the biggest cloud hosting advantages. Furthermore, autoscaling triggers the addition or removal of servers when usage increases or decreases.
- Why It Matters: You do not pay for idle resources but still have the infrastructure in place to handle growth.
6. DevOps and Monitoring (Health and Maintenance)
Monitoring tools look after your app features, such as health, logs, and performance. It includes automated backups, alerts, and deployment pipelines (CI/CD).
- Why It Matters: You wish to be the first one alerted of the problems instead of your users.
Cloud Hosting Providers to Know
Below are some of the most well-known cloud hosting service providers that have computing resources and offer additional services to manage them.
- MilesWeb Cloud—Perfect for startups looking for cost-effective managed cloud services based in India.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)—The broadest offering, but very complicated.
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP)—Best for AI and ML, new companies, and those looking for scalable offerings.
Final Thoughts
Cloud hosting is much more than just offering virtual space for your application. Think of the infrastructure of your application as the base you construct upon; its elements are critical to the functionality the application provides, such as application uptime and efficiency of operation.
Have your developers or service providers ensure they understand the following questions:
- Does the application support autoscaling?
- Are the backups for the database executed on a predefined and reliable interval?
- How does the load balancing for traffic to different servers work?
- What are the business continuity strategies in the case of a service failure?
As a founder, your primary responsibility is to connect the product, the users, and the value seamlessly. While the server configuration is not your responsibility, it is in your interest to know cloud architecture so you can avoid costly mistakes and make informed scaling decisions
