Despite its name, cloud-based web hosting has absolutely nothing to do with the sky. It gets its name from the fact that the service it provides is from a remote location. In the past, any data storage needed for a website or for personal use had to be stored on a hard drive connected to or inside of the computer used. Companies who sold storage space were selling a specific hands-on product. Cloud computing doesn’t provide a product but a service. It makes it possible for nearly anyone with a computer and an internet connection to easily store and access their data.

Cloud-based web hosting is based on server sharing. A physical server exists in a remote location. The owner of this server then offers space, like renting a storage unit for your files, to multiple users up to the limit that their specific hardware has the capacity for. This saves the customer a great deal of expense, as they can purchase only the space that they want instead of an entire drive. Cloud-based web hosting is also much more user friendly in the degree of knowledge required by the user. The technical understanding of how it works isn’t necessary to take advantage of its existence. In short, cloud hosting took computing out of the sole ownership of the brilliant and technologically-minded elite and placed it in the hands of anyone with a basic computer set-up and minimal web knowledge.