Taking Your Drupal Site to the Cloud
September 25th, 2012 | 
Author: Many bloggers prefer to use Drupal over WordPress. I can understand the appeal, because there are many advantages to using the Drupal content management system. However, one of the primary limitations of Drupal is that it is difficult to make it more scalable (although many of those features are still superior to those on WordPress). You can’t expand the capacity of your site without allocating a considerable amount of capital to new hardware.
Fortunately, you can scale your Drupal site by taking it to the cloud. There are a number of cloud solutions that Drupal site owners can take advantage of. Some of the solutions are simple, but they can work very well.
Google Docs
You can actually host files on Google Docs and then embed the files within your Drupal site. Uploading a Google Doc can take a couple of minutes. This can be a particularly effective solution if you need to store large files that could cause your site to run more slowly or consume considerable amounts of precious resources.
Amazon
Amazon provides a number of great services that you can utilize. One of the features Amazon offers is a CloudFront service. You can coordinate CloudFront with a number of other web services such as Drupal content management systems. You can transfer data between users quickly and easily.
One of the advantages of using Amazon’s CloudFront services is that it can transfer data between your site and the cloud server. Amazon provides servers in a number of countries, so you can utilize them regardless of where your blog is located. They have recently installed a server in Madrid. Many cloud providers have a single server that is best suited to serve clients in a specific region of the world. You would have to worry about data losses if you were using a cloud provider based in Indonesia while your visitors are based in the United States. Amazon can help you minimize these risks if the servers are located near your clients.
Private Cloud Hosting Company
There are a number of companies that provide cloud hosting services. I have heard good things about Scale Matrix and a few other providers. You will need to check the features these services provide to ensure that they will meet your specifications and are likely to be compatible with Drupal features.
Cloud services have created a number of opportunities for Drupal site owners. Take these considerations in mind when you need to start scaling your site more. Have you taken your Drupal site to the cloud? What were your experiences? Please share your thoughts below.
Maxwell Groff has written this article on behalf of Scale Matrix, a cloud computing private cloud provider.
Kalen Smith is the Founder of Online Rookies and Engineer-a-Business. He holds degrees in mechanical engineering and an MBA. However, his true passion has always been IT and Internet marketing. You can find him on Twitter at Engineerbiz.
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