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What is cloud infrastructure?

Cloud infrastructure refers to the hardware and software components that make up a cloud computing environment.
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Cloud infrastructure explained

Cloud infrastructure is the backbone of cloud computing, made up of hardware and software resources like servers, storage devices, networking equipment, and virtualization software. These components work together to deliver cloud services, allowing you to access and manage computing resources whenever you need them. This setup offers flexibility, scalability, and cost-efficiency, making it a smart choice for businesses looking to optimize their operations.

Key takeaways

  • Cloud infrastructure refers to the collection of hardware and software resources that make up a cloud computing environment.
  • The key components of cloud infrastructure are servers, data storage, networking equipment and technologies, virtualization software, and security.
  • Cloud infrastructure services offer a number of benefits, including cost optimization through pay-as-you-go models, rapid scalability without hardware investments, enhanced innovation capabilities through access to cutting-edge technologies, and reduced maintenance.
  • Cloud infrastructure isn’t the same thing as cloud computing. While cloud computing is the delivery of various services over the internet, including storage, processing power, and applications, cloud infrastructure encompasses the physical and software components, such as servers, storage, and networking, that make up the environment where these services are hosted.
  • The future of cloud infrastructure will be heavily influenced by AI, which will allow for more efficient management, predictive analytics, and automation. AI-powered solutions will enhance scalability, optimize resource allocation, and improve security, making cloud infrastructure smarter and more responsive to organizational needs.
Features

How does cloud infrastructure work?

Cloud infrastructure is made up of several components that work together to deliver cloud computing applications and services.

Hardware

Cloud environments consist of physical hardware found in datacenters across various regions, including servers and backup devices.

Compute

The compute layer of cloud infrastructure is responsible for running and managing virtual machines, containers, and other workloads. It employs virtualization technology to create virtualized resources that can be dynamically allocated and reconfigured.

Storage

Cloud infrastructure typically relies on cloud storage, which involves storing data on a remote server rather than a local hard drive. Cloud storage providers like Azure offer a variety of storage services for block, objective, and file storage that allow you to easily scale performance.

Networking

In the context of cloud infrastructure, networking allows users to connect to and deliver hybrid and cloud-native applications with low latency.

Security

Cloud infrastructure often includes a variety of security measures, like encryption, authentication, access control, and monitoring, to protect your data by rapidly identifying threats.

Management

Typically, cloud infrastructure is managed through a web-based interface that allows users to monitor, configure, and scale as needed.

What are the benefits of cloud infrastructure?

Cloud infrastructure services allow organizations to streamline, simplify, and protect their data. Here are the top benefits of cloud infrastructure services:

Scalability

Cloud infrastructure provides scalability to organizations by allowing them to adjust their computing resources according to demand fluctuations. Because resources are hosted on external datacenters, organizations can scale their operations without significant upfront investments.

Security

Typically, cloud infrastructure providers have tested, proven methods for maintaining a high degree of security over the data they host on their servers. As a result, adopting cloud infrastructure can be a cost-effective way for organizations to enhance their security.

Reliability

Cloud infrastructure is typically managed by large, experienced providers that employ teams of experts to ensure everything runs smoothly. This delivers high availability and business continuity even in the face of rapidly changing conditions.

Resiliency

The scalability, security, and reliability of large-scale cloud infrastructure helps organizations better prepare for and respond to disruptions.

Flexibility

Cloud infrastructure can be accessed from virtually anywhere on all types of devices. This not only supports remote work, but it also provides organizations with the agility to quickly respond and adapt to changing business conditions.

Explore cloud infrastructure services

Learn how about different models of cloud infrastructure solutions.

Infrastructure as a service

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is a cornerstone of cloud infrastructure that has the power to transform how your organization approaches IT resources. Instead of investing heavily in physical hardware that sits in your data center, IaaS allows you to rent compute, storage, and networking resources on-demand—scaling up or down as your needs fluctuate.

The beauty of this model lies in its simplicity—you gain all the power of enterprise-grade infrastructure without the headaches of server maintenance, hardware refreshes, or capacity planning.

Hybrid cloud infrastructure

Hybrid cloud infrastructure is a type of cloud computing that combines on-premises or private clouds with public clouds, allowing data and apps to move between both environments. Organizations use hybrid clouds to leverage the scalability and cost-effectiveness of public clouds for less sensitive data, while keeping more control over data deployed privately. Some use hybrid clouds as a transitional step when migrating workloads from on-premises datacenters to public clouds.

Many organizations adopt hybrid clouds to meet regulatory requirements, optimize on-premises technology investments, and address low latency concerns. Plus, the hybrid cloud now includes edge computing, which brings cloud power closer to IoT devices, reducing communication delays and ensuring reliable operation during offline periods.

What’s on the horizon for cloud computing infrastructure?

AI infrastructure

The future of cloud infrastructure will likely see a major evolution with the integration of AI technologies. As AI continues to advance and become more widely accepted, AI infrastructure will become more prevalent—and this transformative technology will provide the necessary computational power and scalability to support complex AI workloads. With AI infrastructure, organizations will enjoy more efficient data processing, real-time analytics, and advanced machine learning capabilities, allowing these companies to harness the full potential of AI.

With purpose-built infrastructure designed to handle the demands of AI, businesses can expect improved performance, reduced latency, and enhanced security, paving the way for innovative solutions and smarter decision-making.

The adaptive cloud

The adaptive cloud model will also become increasingly common in the near future. This approach unifies siloed teams, distributed sites, and sprawling systems into a single operations, security, application, and data model. This allows organizations to tap into cloud-native and AI technologies to work simultaneously across hybrid, multicloud, edge, and IoT environments. 

By consolidating disparate assets into one control plane, the adaptive cloud enhances governance, security, and compliance, while also improving operational efficiency and agility. This helps businesses to move beyond legacy systems and embrace continuous improvement, ensuring they can quickly adapt to changing market conditions and technological advancements.

Learn more about the adaptive cloud
Resources

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Ready to dive deeper into cloud infrastructure? Discover resources to help you explore specific aspects of cloud adoption, from technical implementation to strategic planning.
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Frequently asked questions

  • Cloud infrastructure delivers essential computing functions without the hardware headaches. It provides scalable compute power, flexible storage solutions, robust networking capabilities, and automated resource management. The real magic happens when these components work together to enable rapid deployment, automatic scaling, and resilient applications—all while letting your team focus on innovation rather than server maintenance.
  • Cloud infrastructure comes in three main flavors: public (shared resources managed by providers like Microsoft Azure), private (dedicated resources for your organization only), and hybrid (combining both approaches). Each type offers different balances of control, cost, and complexity. There's also multi-cloud infrastructure, which leverages services from multiple providers to avoid vendor lock-in and optimize for specific workloads.
  • At the core of cloud infrastructure are compute resources (virtual machines and containers), storage systems (from simple object storage to sophisticated databases), and networking elements (virtual networks, load balancers, and security appliances). Supporting these are identity management services, monitoring tools, and automation platforms that keep everything running smoothly.
  • Hybrid cloud computing blends private and public cloud infrastructure components into a unified environment. Think of it as getting the best of both worlds—keeping sensitive workloads on your private infrastructure while leveraging the scalability and cost-efficiency of public cloud services for everything else. Modern hybrid solutions like Azure Arc even let you manage everything through a single control plane, regardless of where your resources physically reside.
  • When embracing cloud computing infrastructure, prioritize data sovereignty (where your information physically resides), compliance requirements for your industry, connectivity reliability, and vendor lock-in concerns. Also consider your team's cloud expertise—do you need to train existing staff or hire specialists? Finally, establish clear governance policies before deployment to manage access control, resource provisioning, and cost monitoring across your cloud infrastructure components.
  • Cloud delivery models define what you manage versus what your provider handles. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) gives you virtualized computing resources. Platform as a Service (PaaS) adds development tools and middleware. Software as a Service (SaaS) delivers complete applications. Each model progressively reduces your management burden while increasing the abstraction level of cloud infrastructure services.
  • The three biggest cloud infrastructure challenges are security (protecting data across distributed environments), cost management (preventing unexpected spending spikes as resources scale), and complexity (integrating cloud resources with existing systems). Organizations also struggle with cloud governance and skills gaps. Fortunately, tools like Azure Advisor and Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework provide structured approaches to addressing these challenges.
  • Azure is a cloud computing platform operated by Microsoft that offers more than 200 products and cloud services including infrastructure as a service (IaaS).
  • There are multiple cloud infrastructure certifications available, including Microsoft Azure certification. These certifications demonstrate an individual's ability to design, implement, and manage cloud infrastructure systems.