Hosting is not necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when starting an eCommerce project. However, if you don’t optimize cloud hosting management, it can quickly become problematic, leading to issues like slow speed, downtimes, or security breaches.

In this post, I’ll explore and explain the most common issues resulting from a poorly chosen hosting solution, as well as how managing your web projects in the cloud can help solve most, if not all of your problems.

Cloud hosting management issues affect eCommerce business performance

Let’s dive into the subject by reviewing the most common cloud hosting management issues that eCommerce businesses have to face and solve.

Overcrowded hosting servers equals slow speed and downtime

A low-quality web host is likely to become overcrowded. This is one of the most common reasons a site has downtime. And even if you are lucky enough to avoid downtime, slow loading time is still going to be an issue. This won’t only annoy your customers, making them reluctant to visit your site again in the future, Google will also penalize your site. Google uses speed as a ranking factor, so with a slow-loading website, it is highly unlikely you make it into the Google index. 

When you are choosing a low-quality cloud hosting provider, it is likely that you’ll have to deal with these challenges. Cheap platforms use old CPUs and RAM and even if tech specs look impressive, performance will be lower—4GB of the latest RAM system outperforms 8GB of an old RAM system.

Storage space is also related to cloud hosting and can affect your site’s speed. Ecommerce websites need detailed images of products. This means that your infrastructure needs a lot of bandwidth to support the size of your files. Limited storage slows down your business because your data flow (image imports, stock, order, etc) takes forever.

The solution to these issues is simple: don’t invest in cheap servers and cloud hosting management platforms—your business is running on it! It’s also important that you don’t use cheap storage for your infrastructure. For example, make sure you use SSD disks; they are faster to write and read and run more read/write operations per second. 

It’s also important to remember that purchasing limited storage and servers can cost you more than the amount you saved in the first place by opting out of the more expensive options. This is even more crucial if you don’t have an auto-scaling system, since you’ll need even more storage and server capacity in order to avoid downtime and performance issues.

Ecommerce website security with a bad hosting provider can become a nightmare

This is particularly true with shared hosting, but it does not mean that other solutions are totally secure. There are a lot of factors to take into consideration, especially with eCommerce websites because they store a lot of sensitive data, like credit cards or delivery information. 

Therefore, a hosting solution with a secure data center and a backup service is important in order to avoid any data breaches. In fact, this is one of the fundamental steps we recommend when building an eCommerce website. More specifically, make sure your website:

• uses an encrypted system for your data
• uses a firewall system to block bots and attacks
• has a strong backup system in different datacenters
• uses isolation methods between customers as well as within your own environment

Finally, to reassure your customers about data safety, a two-factor authentication system is highly recommended.

Cloud hosting management solutions need to offer scalability and flexibility

Reaching cloud hosting plan limitations is problematic for eCommerce businesses. When the number of data transfers grows, so does the price of most hosting solutions. 

At this point, we also come across the issue of manual and auto-scaling. If you don’t have the option to set up your website according to your needs, business development is going to be impossible. You cannot always know the features you’ll possibly need in the future, so choosing a cloud hosting management platform that offers a plethora of features and options that is able to grow with your usage and business needs, is a great way to assure your business can scale. 

Most cloud hosting solutions don’t have the features or the technology to scale their platform and server capacities according to their users’ needs. This limitation can seriously hurt eCommerce businesses as their traffic and revenue are often seasonal.

Simply put, customers that can’t access your site, can’t buy and are unlikely to come back to see if your pages load faster than before. To avoid this problem, you need fast and reliable web hosting with a scalable platform.

Migrating an eCommerce business to the cloud

I’m pretty sure you’ve heard a lot about the cloud already so no need for an introduction. But do you know why so many eCommerce businesses are migrating to cloud-based services? Let’s explain the concept a little. 

The cloud consists of data stored across multiple computers that you can access with a network connection. It provides computing resources on the basis of on-demand. And this is exactly what makes the cloud so popular. You can start off your business and increase or decrease the usage of any services with one API Call. You are completely free to scale!

Your data is stored on virtual servers that have access to a network of physical servers. The resources required by your website are spread across those physical servers and depending on your needs, you have access to more or less space on those physical servers. Cloud works and behaves similarly to traditional hosting, however, businesses have access to thousands of more servers around the globe, which means faster speeds and response times.

With cloud hosting, there is no limitation. Tradition hosting solutions have a limited number and size of servers while you have virtually no limitations when using cloud hosting.

Cloud hosting improves all aspects of your web projects

Enhanced performance is only one of the improvements cloud hosting offers; time and cost efficiency are part of what makes cloud hosting the best hosting option out there.

The growing or fluctuating bandwidth demands that come with eCommerce websites are easier to manage using cloud hosting. Whether your needs increase or decrease, you are able to scale up quickly thanks to cloud on-demand servers. You can also count on an auto-scaling SSD to help with the storage of your media content. In that way, you gain operational agility and, of course, time.

Security-wise, many cloud companies use “failover”, a mechanism that guarantees if one of the physical servers is compromised, your resources will just move to another one of the available servers. So, that means no downtime related to security issues and also fewer things for you to worry about.

Migrating businesses to the cloud is a decision that a lot of CIOs and IT directors decided to make without regretting it. And why should they? Cloud improves business performance and levels of service automation while allowing companies to reduce and control their costs. And, to mention once again, it’s flexible, scalable, and secure.

Cloud hosting management needs time and expertise

Cloud hosting is nothing like traditional hosting solutions and for this reason, migrating and managing an eCommerce business in the cloud requires specific technical skills. While traditional hosting requires you to think in terms of servers, with cloud hosting, you need to think in terms of service. 

Cloud hosting solutions require users to configure all the services they’ll need for a website to run smoothly. In order to do that, the user needs to understand the available options and decide on what fits their project best. 

Taking over the steering and upkeep of cloud infrastructure is definitely a job in itself. It requires expert skills and time or spending a considerable amount of money if you get an external expert to do it for you.

So, if you don’t have that deep technical knowledge, how do you overcome this steep learning curve of cloud hosting management? Thankfully, we have the solution for you!

Artifakt was created to provide developers with everything they need in order to build highly efficient web apps, as well as be at the side of organizations, offering the security, scalability, and robustness they require for their infrastructure. We focus on simplifying and automating the complicated processes of cloud hosting management in order to make the magic of cloud technology accessible to every eCommerce business owner.

Do you want to learn more about how we can help you scale your business? Schedule a demo with us today!