How to Pick the Right Cloud Hosting Control Panel?
A cloud-based control panel is an effective tool for admins. It is used to set up and manage instances in the cloud.
A cloud instance comes with a blank operating system. If you like to run a web application, you have to configure server components like NGINX, MySQL manually.
A new cloud hosting project will include:
- Network configuration- assigning an IP address and hostname.
- Installing software packages with the latest versions: PHP, NGINX, MySQL.
- Setting up firewalls.
- Set up remote access via SSH
- Manage user accounts & access levels
Without a control panel, the process becomes complex. You don’t have a GUI to manage everything that needs to be done in the console.
A modern control panel like CloudPanel offers a well-configured server. You get an easy-to-use interface to manage the server workloads.
We cover what to expect in a cloud panel.
What is a Cloud Hosting Control Panel
A cloud hosting control panel helps manage your cloud instance on a clean interface. It is placed between you and the cloud infrastructure.
The graphical user interface comes with a simplified set of functions. It allows you to speed up admin tasks like installing, configuring & maintaining software packages.
The interface hides much of the complexities involved in server management.
You also don’t require the expertise of a command-line However, many control panels provide a CLI to perform these functions.
What to Look for in a Cloud Hosting Control Panel?
The factors to consider when choosing a cloud-based control panel:
- Performance & Tech stack
- Security
- Flexibility
- Additional features
We’ll look at how CloudPanel covers these components.
1. Performance & Technology Stack
The tech or solutions stack is a collection of all software services. It has all the resources required to run your PHP application, such as a web server, database, operating system, etc.
CloudPanel offers the latest technology stack for cloud hosting:
- Debian 10
- NGINX 1.18
- MySQL 5.7
- Multiple PHP versions
- Redis 5
- PHP-FPM
- Node.js 14
- Yarn 1.22
The lightweight stack ensures high performance & flexibility for your PHP applications. It can be used out-of-the-box and does not have any overheads.
2. Security
A control panel should offer security features.
The CloudPanel comes with a Firewall. You can modify firewalls & security groups without accessing the cloud console.
CloudPanel security features include:
- IP Whitelisting
- Two-Factor Authentication
- Bot protection
- Firewalls
- SSL/TLS Encryption certificates
- Regular backups
3. Flexibility
CloudPanel flexibility enables you to install software & services on the cloud instance.
You can load the software packages for your specific PHP application. It offers the latest versions of MySQL, NGINX, PHP, Redis, etc.
You also get multiple PHP versions from CloudPanel. You can change the PHP version with a few clicks.
It allows support for applications running on different PHP versions. The popular PHP applications include Laravel, Symfony, CakePHP.
You can also install a wide range of applications with a few clicks. It includes popular applications like WordPress, Joomla, and Magento.
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Supported Clouds
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant has the latest Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Services rankings.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud rank the top cloud service providers.
CloudPanel offers support for all the big cloud providers. Other major cloud providers include Digital Ocean and Vultr.
You also get advanced cloud features that are useful for server managing. It lets you monitor cloud resources, configure security groups, DNS, and more.
You can perform these tasks without logging into the cloud managing console.
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Backups
Backups & recovery is the process of storing copies of your data at different locations. It helps prevent data loss in case of primary data failure.
You can lose your data in many cases like:
- Hardware failure
- Cyberattacks
- Human errors
- Power failure
- Natural disaster
Using CloudPanel, you can enable automatic backups for your cloud instance. For example, for Amazon Web Services, you can use AMIs to backup the entire Instance.
The AMIs are created incrementally, hourly, every three, six, or twelve hours. You can backup once per day or create backups manually on demand.
It's a similar process for Google Cloud’s Snapshots and the Digital Ocean’s Droplet Snapshots.
Backups help in faster disaster recovery in the event of accidental data loss.
4. Additional Features
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User Management
User roles in the cloud are loosely configured and grant excessive privileges.
For example, untrained users may have database delete or write permissions. It causes security risks even at the application level.
Proper User management controls the user access to cloud resources.
CloudPanel allows admins to manage user accounts & permissions. The primary user management features include:
- Add or delete CloudPanel users
- Add or delete SSH/SFTP and FTP Users.
- Manage Passwords for users
- Add a Public Key to a user for Key Authentication
- Set Database User roles to Read and Write or Read-Only.
Conclusion
The CloudPanel smoothens many workloads of server management. You can take care of routine tasks like backups, managing permissions & checking server health.
We covered what factors to consider while choosing a cloud-based control panel. It includes the performance & latest tech stack, security & flexibility components.
With CloudPanel, you get the standard & advanced features specifically for a cloud hosting panel. You can get CloudPanel up & run within 60 seconds!
To learn more about cloud server management, check out CloudPanel Blog.
