Cloudproviders

Cloud providers are companies that offer computing resources and services over the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis. They provide scalable computing power, storage, databases, networks, and application services through data centers and automated management systems.

They commonly offer service models such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). IaaS provides virtualized hardware such as virtual machines and storage; PaaS offers development and runtime environments; SaaS delivers ready-to-use applications. Examples include IaaS with Amazon EC2, Azure Virtual Machines, and Google Compute Engine; PaaS with AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Google App Engine, and Azure App Service; SaaS with Salesforce, Office 365, and Google Workspace.

Deployment models include public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud. Public cloud runs on shared infrastructure; private cloud is dedicated to a single organization; hybrid cloud combines on-premises and cloud resources; multi-cloud uses services from multiple providers.

Major cloud providers include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), with additional offerings from IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, and others. Providers differ in regions, service breadth, pricing structures, and target markets.

Common features cover compute, object and block storage, managed databases, analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning services, networking, security, identity, monitoring, and automation. Pricing is typically pay-as-you-go, with options such as reserved or spot instances and tiered storage; service level agreements (SLAs) and credits are used to indicate reliability guarantees.

Considerations for users include security and compliance, data residency, performance, potential vendor lock-in, data portability, interoperability, and governance. Trends include multi-cloud and hybrid strategies, serverless and edge computing, and increased focus on sustainability.