Let’s take a quick look at the differences between hosted services and cloud services, what the terms mean, and how they differ.
What is a Hosted Solution?
Hosted solutions are computing services hosted on the internet. The service may be a website, online backup, e-mail, online banking, and so on. But from a business perspective common solutions include servers and hosted desktop solutions.
Generally, most hosted solutions are hosted on a single server or a group of servers. A hosted service provider possesses and oversees software, infrastructure, and administrative tasks in an independent site. The system is accessible to customers via a direct network connection over the Internet, via a remote desktop, VPN connection or similar.
What are the merits of hosted services?
Hosted solutions encompass a wide range of services such as off-site backup, data warehousing, and more. When reflecting on hosted solutions in real life, you may have come across them more frequently than you think.
Some examples include:
- Security
- Virtual Server hosting
- Hosted Email
- File hosting
- Website hosting
What is a cloud service?
Cloud services are a subset of hosted solutions. The processing and data is stored remotely in powerful data centres where a number of different servers work together to form a cloud. If a single server ceases working, it doesn’t influence the cloud as a whole. This considerably assists with managing the servers since you can repair, update, and sustain servers without downtime.
One of the key advantages of the cloud is interconnectivity and collaboration
Hosted solutions, even those available by use of the Internet, cannot be depicted as real cloud services as typically the server is still stored on-site.
At Akita, we have invested in our own cloud infrastructure in two geographically separated data centres. But we also support organisations that have made other cloud choices such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Cloud.
What are the merits of cloud services?
The biggest advantage of cloud services is the expandability of solutions while remaining cost-effective. Additionally, cloud solutions are more likely to be up-to-date in security features, updates and speed than a traditionally hosted solution.
Examples of cloud hosting services include:
Hosted services and cloud services: When should you consider each?
When deciding between hosted services and cloud services, there are a few considerations. Security requirements, performance needs, budget, scalability requirements and the level of control desired are all factors.
If an organisation requires complete control over its infrastructure, has specific security or compliance needs, or deals with sensitive data, hosted services may be the better option.
Conversely, if flexibility, scalability, and cost-efficiency are the primary concerns, cloud services are likely the more suitable choice.
In practice, many organisations adopt a hybrid approach; leveraging both hosted services and cloud services based on specific use cases. This hybrid model allows them to take advantage of the benefits offered by each option while optimising costs, performance, and security.
Ultimately, the decision between hosted services and cloud services should align with an organisation’s requirements, strategic goals, and available resources. And Akita is here to help guide you on all of these points.
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