What is Cluster Hosting?

Many of you may be aware of “clustered hosting” but, do not really know what it is and what are the benefits of cluster hosting as compared with other traditional types of hosting solutions. To eliminate inherent errors in systems mainly shared hosting, clustered hosting is introduced into the market. This means putting multiple servers in a group and sharing the work of the network stack. To ensure that it is not limited to one particular server site, the sites’ resources are designed with total accuracy. This will maximize the consistency of subsidized servers for all Web sites with their own laziness of service.

What is cluster hosting?

“Traditional” web hosting uses one server for one or multiple client accounts and websites. Several types of hosting plans use this model. The common thread between them is that each site is assigned to a specific server. With cluster plans, the key difference is that your website will be hosted across multiple servers, typically in the same physical location. Each server is generally called a node.

For example, your host might be hosted on five different servers (nodes) in the same location, which means there’s no single point of failure.

A web host might have various server clusters across multiple regions, each with its own set of clients.

What makes Cluster Hosting different?

Cluster hosting is different from traditional hosting in that it takes multiple servers and combines them into a single storage pool so that resources can be shared and managed more efficiently.

It also uses load balancing to ensure that resources are distributed evenly across the cluster, resulting in better performance and reliability. In addition, cluster hosting provides redundancy and failover capabilities so that if one server fails, another can take over its tasks.

How does it work?

Clustered hosting assigns each site its own server resources, such as CPU, memory, and disk space. This contrasts with shared hosting, where multiple websites share the same server resources. When a website hosted on a cluster receives a request, the load balancer distributes the request across the different servers in the cluster.

The server that is best able to handle the request will then process it and return the results to the user. This ensures that each website hosted on a cluster gets the resources it needs to function optimally.

While clustered hosting and cloud hosting are similar in that they both use multiple servers, there are some key differences between them.

With cloud hosting, your website is hosted on a network of servers located in different physical locations. This offers increased redundancy because if one server goes down, your website can still be up and running on the other servers in the network.

Clustered hosting takes things a step further by connecting the servers in the cluster, typically in the same physical location, so they can share resources and information. This allows for even greater reliability and scalability because the servers can work together to handle increased traffic or other demands.

Pros and cons of Cluster Hosting

There are a lot of benefits to using cluster hosting.

The main upside of cluster setups is that you get a great deal of scalability. The more nodes you pay for, the more resources that you’ll get access to, which means your account can handle more traffic or websites.

Compared to cloud hosting, cluster servers tend to offer better performance, and they’re often managed. That means you get a team working to make sure your cluster delivers the best possible performance and security.

What’s more, your site will have rock-solid reliability because there’s no single point of failure. If one node goes down, the load balancer can seamlessly redirect traffic to other nodes that are still working.

All of those upsides come at a cost, though. In this case, that cost is a high price tag. Most cluster plans start in the $500-1,000 range per month, and it’s not uncommon to see options that cost thousands of dollars.

With that in mind, cluster hosting is only viable if you have a well-established website (or multiple sites) and need the very best performance, scalability, and reliability.

If you’re launching a new website and you have little experience with hosting, we recommend trying out other types of plans, such as virtual private server (VPS) or shared setups instead.

Conclusion

Cluster hosting is a fantastic option that most people don’t consider, especially since not many web hosts offer this plan. However, companies that do tend to go all out with their resources, added features, and server management.

With that in mind, it’s important to remember cluster hosting is not a budget option. However, it may be the way to go if you want the very best reliability, scalability, and performance, and you’re willing to pay for all of that.