Cluster hosting is not very well known compared to other types of hosting plans. You might already know how shared and dedicated hosting work, but most providers don’t offer “cluster” services. That’s a shame since cluster hosting provides many benefits that other types of plans don’t.
With cluster hosting plans, your website doesn’t reside in just one server but across many. This can offer serious benefits when it comes to scaling your site (handling more traffic) and avoiding downtime.
However, the main con is that cluster hosting is a more advanced hosting setup, which makes it a lot pricier than your average web host.
What is cluster hosting?
“Traditional” web hosting uses one server for one or multiple client accounts and websites. There are several types of hosting plans that use this model. The common thread between all of 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 typically 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?
The main benefits of cluster hosting are a high degree of 💪 scalability and reliability.
Depending on the cluster’s resources, its servers should be able to handle spikes in traffic without any issues.
Many cluster hosting approaches can also create new nodes in the cluster at will, which lets the host generate more servers during high traffic situations. This is called “horizontal scaling.”
In contrast, “vertical scaling” works by adding more resources to a single server rather than adding more servers.
Moreover, downtime shouldn’t be a problem because it is nearly impossible for all servers in a cluster to go down at the same time. Basically, having a cluster means there’s no single point of failure.
To direct traffic between these different servers, a host will typically employ a load balancer. The load balancer does what its name suggests – it balances the load of your site’s traffic by directing traffic to different servers in the cluster.
ℹ️ It’s important to understand that cluster hosting is not a budget option. Most cluster plans start in the hundreds of dollars per month. You’re usually paying for clusters with plenty of resources and hands-on-server management. Therefore, unlike cloud hosting plans, it’s very rare to find cheap cluster hosting providers.
What to look for in a cluster hosting provider
If you’re not yet familiar with cluster hosting plans, you might not
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This article was written by John Hughes and originally published on ThemeIsle Blog.