baremetalcloud

Bare-metal cloud is a form of cloud computing that provides physical servers dedicated to a single customer, accessed and managed through cloud-like interfaces. In this model, workloads run directly on hardware resources assigned to the user, rather than on abstracted virtual machines. Providers typically offer a range of CPUs, memory, storage, GPUs, and network options, with options to customize BIOS, firmware, or NIC settings via API or portal.

Key characteristics include dedicated hardware with predictable performance and strong isolation from other tenants, the ability to tailor hardware configurations, and high bandwidth networking. Customers gain direct access to the server’s resources and often to low-level management features, enabling workloads that require maximum throughput or specific hardware traits. Bare-metal environments are commonly integrated with automation tooling and cloud management platforms to support provisioning, monitoring, and scaling.

Provisioning and management are typically API-driven, allowing infrastructure as code workflows through tools such as Terraform or Ansible. Billing is commonly based on hourly or monthly rates, with additional charges for data transfer, storage, and optional managed services. The approach is well suited for workloads demanding consistent performance, stable licensing, or hardware characteristics that virtualization cannot reliably provide.

Common use cases include latency-sensitive databases, high-performance computing, large-scale analytics, GPU-accelerated tasks, and applications requiring strict data residency or compliance controls. While offering performance advantages, bare-metal cloud can involve longer provisioning times and lower elasticity compared with virtualized cloud offerings, requiring careful capacity planning and management.