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Cloud Hosting vs Green Hosting

Cloud vs Green Hosting

In the web hosting industry there have been two major movements in recent years. One is the move toward being energy-efficient and offsetting electricity use with “Green” wind energy certificates. The other movement is cloud server technology which helps promote smoother, faster, and more reliable web hosting service. But can cloud hosting and green hosting be compatible? Which type of host should you choose when it comes to your web hosting?

Green Hosting Defined

Typically, when referring to Green Hosting one is referring to a hosting company that provides affordable shared-server hosting, but also has a focus of saving electricity through efficient energy use and Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). Many of the top rated shared-hosting companies are moving to some form of energy efficiency and promoting their “green” policies to attract new customers.

Renewable Energy Certificates

Going “Green” can mean a number of things. One web hosting company’s “green” policies may differ from another, but yet they can still claim to be eco-friendly and carbon-neutral.

One way to assure that a company is “green” is whether they purchase Renewable Energy Certificates. RECs are additional monies paid to an electricity provider to help offset the cost of exploring and producing alternative energy such as wind, solar, or geothermal. Any hosting company can purchase RECs in addition to their regular energy costs, even a cloud server host. As well, any hosting company that does purchase at least 100% of their electricity bill with RECs can certainly claim to be “green” in anyone’s eyes.

Energy consumption policies

Another way to go “green” is through a particular hosting company’s energy consumption policies. Whether a hosting company is a cloud server host, shared-server host, or dedicated server hosting company, they can still work to reduce the total amount of energy consumed by their server output. That means configuring servers to run efficiently by not overheating, and through a temperature and climate-controlled data center facility.

Cloud configuration

By its own nature, cloud server technology is an efficient form of web server technology. Servers are configured so that they are not overused and overheated. However, by its nature, it also requires a larger number of web servers to be used to bring this type of web host efficiency. Thus, it is still up to the cloud web hosting company to determine whether they want to go ‘green’ with their energy usage. Cloud hosts like SiteCloud, which claims to be the world’s #1 cloud hosting provider, promotes itself to be eco-friendly. They do this through cloud server structure and architecture, and also through RECs.

The choice is yours

Whether you want to go green or choose the reliability of cloud computing is, of course, up to the consumer. Green hosting is still a reliable and affordable way to get your website online. But cloud server hosting, though still in its development years, can be green through the company’s policies. Use your best judgment to get the type of service you need and which falls best within your conscience.

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26th January 2011
Posted by Web Hosting Consultant in tips
Tags: cloud and green hosting, cloud or green hosting, cloud versus green hosting, cloud vs green hosting, , , green web host company,

One Response to “Cloud Hosting vs Green Hosting”

  1. Green web hosting reviews says:
    November 1, 2011 at 12:52 am

    So, for the same or similar cost, your business can gain customer trust by using eco friendly web hosting while keeping your business online and available at all times.

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