Web hosting industry is the foundation for the entire internet ecosystem as it is the underlying service for any website- no matter how big or small it is. Hence, the trends in web hosting industry tend to impact the entire World Wide Web in some or the other ways. It is clearly visible in increasing number of websites during last 15 years as the hosting costs reduced significantly. In this post we are going to discuss about various other trends in the hosting industry as we step into the third decade of second millennium:
Hosting companies are going green
A massive number of data cnetrre across different part of the world are posing a threat to the planet. The rising temperatures and climate change issues have invited world’s attention to this issue and there are big efforts going on to resolve it.
Due to the 24X7 operations and heavy functionalities the equipment in the datacenters can easily turn into red hot pieces if not kept in a temperature-controlled ambiance that demands for cooling equipments which generates lots of CO2 emissions and inflates our carbon footprint.
Responding to this situation many hosting companies are fast inching towards environment-friendly alternatives to reduce energy consumption while others are adopting carbon offsetting strategies. Green hosting options like REC (Renewable Energy Certificates) and VER or carbon offset certificates may not have become a global phenomena yet but there is an impressively increasing list of companies with these certificates.
VER certificate mentions the specific greenhouse gases that the company has successfully reduced by adopting environment-friendly operations. The RECs are offered to certify the companies who play a role in renewable energy creation. Hosting companies purchase such certificates and to support the budget of operational expenses needed for different initiatives for green energy.
Cloud is replacing in-house datacenters
With the increasing popularity of the cloud computing the number of in-house data centres has started showing a steady decline which is a good thing for enterprises and the environment too. Corporate entities are fast transferring their data assets from in-house data centres to the cloud- a move that not only minimizes the costs significantly but also uncomplicated the management of IT ecosystem. By delegating data management responsibility to cloud providers the organizations can fully concentrate on their main business rather than diverting their attention to daily technicalities. It has also created opportunities for service providers to offer more personalized data management/collaboration for enterprises.
Multi-cloud hosting is here to stay
Multi-cloud hosting is among the top gamechangers in the hosting industry as it builds a unified atmosphere for different stakeholders to promote team collaboration, improve data management and reinforce the security.
As the name suggests the multi-cloud hosting relieves enterprises from a single-cloud dependency by empowering them to host data on multiple cloud environments. It enables the clients to share numerous cloud assets- including the sophisticated heavy files, across multiple environments.
The multi-cloud hosting has gained even more importance during this time as more organizations are moving towards work from home culture.
The race to the cheapest prices
Price competition is not a new trend in the industry but in the more recent years- and especially during this pandemic period this trend has seen a heavy rise as WFH has already multiplied the enterprise IT expenses.
The shared hosting plan have been long empowering small companies and even individuals to step into the digital landscape but it generally had costly trade-offs in terms of less privacy, security risks and low-volume of resources.
The latest technologies have made it possible to level up the shared hosting services by balancing the price and features. It has opened a way for many hosting providers to offer a better level of privacy and security than the conventional hosting plans while maintaining the same prices. Moreover, the clients have become more demanding and cautious while buying shared hosting plans. Unlike their conventional peers, they don’t settle for cheap quality just to save some dollars. Even for shared hosting plans the clients now demand a fairly decent performance and security profile and the current developments are helping hosting companies to achieve that.
Securing in-transit data with HTTPS
Since the Google has decided to place a non-secure label to HTTP sites in 2018, the industry has seen a fast trend towards HTTPS websites. The effect of this step can be gauged from the fact that 97% of the sites have already become HTTPS. It has been believed to be included in the ranking parameters of Google. Besides, the people won’t prefer to share their personal information or payment card numbers on unsecured HTTP sites and it adversely reduces the online shopping transactions. All these factors have compelled an increasing list websites to graduate to HTTPS.
Rewards like improved ranking position, better security, increased sales opportunities, and gaining customer trusts have compelled many businesses to invest in SSL certificates to make their sites secured (HTTPS). It actually encrypts the data submitted by the users and saves it from in-transit attacks.
Due to all these factors many hosting companies are offering free SSL certificates to the consumers. In that capability they are contributing towards making internet a safer place to shop and interact. Besides, many hosting providers are also posting helpful resources and HTTPS tutorials to assist customers on how to use HTTPS web hosting in the right manner.