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What is a cloud service provider?

A cloud service provider is a third-party company offering a cloud-based platform, infrastructure, application, or storage services. Much like a homeowner would pay for a utility such as electricity or gas, companies typically have to pay only for the amount of cloud services they use, as business demands require.

Besides the pay-per-use model, cloud service providers also give companies a wide range of benefits. Businesses can take advantage of scalability and flexibility by not being limited to physical constraints of on-premises servers, the reliability of multiple data centers with multiple redundancies, customization by configuring servers to your preferences, and responsive load balancing that can easily respond to changing demands. Though businesses should also evaluate security considerations of storing information in the cloud to ensure industry-recommended access and compliance management configurations and practices are enacted and met.

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