What It Is
The delivery of computing services (servers, storage, databases, networking, software) over the internet rather than on local physical servers. Transformed how companies build and scale technology.
The Big Three Cloud Providers
AWS (Amazon Web Services): Launched 2006, market leader ~32% share
Microsoft Azure: Enterprise-focused, ~22% share
Google Cloud Platform (GCP): Data/ML strength, ~11% share
Smaller players: IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud, DigitalOcean, Linode
Types of Cloud Services
IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service): Virtual machines and storage (AWS EC2, Azure VMs)
PaaS (Platform as a Service): Application hosting without managing infrastructure (Heroku, Google App Engine)
SaaS (Software as a Service): Complete applications (Gmail, Salesforce, Zoom)
Business Impact
Pre-Cloud Era:
- Buy physical servers upfront
- Months to provision new capacity
- Data center maintenance costs
- Over-provision for peak load
Cloud Era:
- Pay as you go
- Scale up/down in minutes
- No hardware maintenance
- Only pay for what you use
This transformed startups—no longer needed massive capital for infrastructure.
The Great Cloud Migration
2010s saw mass exodus from on-premise data centers to cloud:
- Capital expense → operational expense
- Faster innovation cycles
- Global reach without physical presence
- Disaster recovery built-in
Pushback & Considerations
Cloud Repatriation (~2020+): Some companies (Dropbox, 37signals) moved back to owned hardware after:
- Cloud costs exceeded expectations
- Vendor lock-in concerns
- Data sovereignty issues
- Performance optimization needs
“Cloud is just someone else’s computer” became a meme.
Career Gold Rush
Cloud certifications became resume gold:
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect
- Azure Administrator
- Google Cloud Professional Architect
Companies struggled to hire cloud talent fast enough.