Web Hosting’s Vital Role During COVID-19: Spotlight on Cloudways
“During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, web hosting emerged as a critical foundation of the digital landscape. The e-commerce sector experienced a significant surge in web traffic, and the hosting industry played a pivotal role in supporting this increase.
Amidst the numerous players in the hosting industry, Cloudways has distinguished itself by offering managed cloud hosting solutions for a decade. In the past year, Cloudways broke its previous records for active servers, achieved notable milestones, and expanded its global workforce.
This article explores Cloudways’ services, its application support, and provides a guide on deploying your application on the Cloudways platform.
Cloudways: Your Solution for Managed Cloud Hosting
Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting solution tailored to support an extensive range of PHP-based applications such as Magento, WordPress, Laravel, and many more.
Founded in 2010 in Mosta, Malta, Cloudways was established with the fundamental goal of promoting business growth and mutual success. As time has passed, the platform has continually evolved, incorporating the latest technology stack to address modern challenges. Notably, Cloudways achieved an impressive #2 ranking in the Managed Hosting category on G2 for Winter 2021.
Our Target Audience
We are the ideal choice for eCommerce businesses, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMBs), agencies, and developers. We enable our customers to easily launch Magento, WordPress, or any PHP-based application within minutes, even if they have no prior technical experience.”
What Challenges Does Cloudways Solve?
Server management can often be a complex endeavor. We simplify this process by offering pre-installed services that are vital for the smooth operation of any application.
Our customers have the freedom to choose their servers from the top 5 cloud providers in the industry, including DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, AWS, and Google Cloud Platform. These providers are renowned for their excellence and offer a variety of server locations, allowing users to select based on their target audience and pricing preferences.
Furthermore, we provide the flexibility to scale servers on demand, without the need for advance notice. This feature is especially valuable during seasonal campaigns like Black Friday and Christmas, among others
Features of Cloudways
Cloudways is a cloud hosting platform that simplifies the process of deploying, managing, and scaling web applications across various cloud infrastructure providers. It has garnered popularity among developers and businesses due to its array of features and advantages. As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, here are some of the noteworthy features of Cloudways:
- Multiple Cloud Infrastructure Providers: Cloudways supports a variety of cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, and more. Users can select their preferred provider based on factors like performance, cost, and geographic location.
- One-Click Application Deployment: Cloudways offers an intuitive control panel that enables users to effortlessly deploy popular web applications like WordPress, Magento, Joomla, Laravel, and others with a single click.
- Server Scaling: Users can easily adjust server resources up or down to accommodate changes in traffic and application requirements. Scaling options include CPU, RAM, and storage upgrades.
- Managed Servers: Cloudways provides managed hosting, handling server maintenance tasks such as security patching, server updates, and backups. This allows users to focus on application development.
- SSD-Based Hosting: Storage relies on solid-state drives (SSDs), providing faster data access and enhanced performance compared to traditional hard drives.
- Performance Optimization: Cloudways incorporates various performance optimization features like server-level caching, PHP-FPM, HTTP/2 support, and built-in Content Delivery Network (CDN) integration to accelerate websites and applications.
- Server Management Tools: The platform offers a user-friendly dashboard for managing server settings, monitoring server performance, and accessing server logs.
- Staging Environments: Users can create staging copies of their applications for testing and development without impacting the live site. Changes can be easily pushed to the live environment once they are tested and approved.
- Security Features: Cloudways prioritizes security, offering features such as automatic backups, server-level firewalls, regular security patching, and free SSL certificates to safeguard applications and data.
- Team Collaboration: Users can collaborate with team members by granting them access to specific servers or applications without sharing account credentials.
- 24/7 Customer Support: Cloudways provides round-the-clock customer support to address technical issues and answer questions.
- Pay-As-You-Go Billing: Cloudways employs a pay-as-you-go pricing model, allowing users to pay only for the resources they utilize. This flexible approach can lead to cost savings compared to traditional hosting plans.
- Application and Server Monitoring: Real-time monitoring of application and server performance is available, with alerts and notifications to keep users informed about any issues.
- Application and Server Cloning: Users can easily clone entire applications or servers to create backups or duplicate instances for testing or development purposes.
Please note that Cloudways may have introduced new features or updates since my last knowledge update in September 2021.
