Cloud Hosting (3)
Is cloud hosting really the fastest/best way to go for large volume campaigns? What is the best way to get the fastest possible performance out of cloud hosting and how do you get the fastest redirects?
Thanks!
I don't think "cloud" hosting is specifically any faster or better than normal hosting e.g. a high performance dedicated server, and is probably not advantageous when it comes to just tracking/redirecting your traffic on the solo scale. How to get the fastest redirects is a very open-ended question, perhaps you should be thinking what is the most sensible option within my price range for the volume I'm delivering. In most cases I would think a dedicated server would be at the top of the pyramid.
The key issue when choosing between cloud hosting and dedicated hosting isn't really the type of hosting, it's whether the company that sets up your servers is optimising for speed, and also whether they know their arse from their elbow 
There were some very useful comments about cloud hosting, both from me and others, in my guide to Affiliate Marketing Web Hosting, recently. I'd recommend having a read through that.
Cloud hosting has some big advantages, particularly if you're running campaigns that can suddenly and massively scale up or down. However, it also has some problems, mostly to do with the underlying software that's being used to generate the virtual machine you're hosted on.
The big problem that cloud hosting tends to hit - and I've heard this from a few people - is input/output speeds. Because you're talking about a virtualised hosting setup, there's a big layer of software between you and the bare metal of the server or servers you're running on - and if that's not optimised for speed, as it tends not to be, you tend to end up in a world of really slow pain.
Conversely, a dedicated server needs to be set up correctly too, or it can easily end up as slow or slower than cloud. SATA drives with a sub-optimal driver, an operating system running a bunch of unnecessary overheads and an unoptimised MySQL/PHP/Apache stack can cheerfully slow the biggest, fattest dedicated hardware down below even software virtualisation.
Go with a host you trust and you know can deliver lightning-fast hosting first and foremost, make sure your software stack is built for speed second, and worry about whether you're using a "cloud" solution, a VPS or dedicated hardware third.
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