Cloud Hosting

The businesses most likely to benefit from cloud hosting technology are those with unpredictable needs, it has been claimed.

Editor of PC Pro magazine Tim Danton said spreading the visitor load over a number of different servers could make a difference during a website's performance during a traffic spike.

"It shouldn’t cost too much to implement, but beware the fact you get charged on a different basis - by how much resource you use, essentially, so the costs could rack up," he warned.

Mr Danton added that cloud computing was now being talked about by more companies.

Meanwhile, Paul Mutton, internet services developer at Netcraft has advised businesses to host their websites in several different locations so that they can swap them over if they encounter technical problems.

This follows the news that Sainsbury's lost an estimated £1 million in potential sales after its online shopping service was suspended on two separate occasions.