Cloud services are infrastructure, platforms, or software that are hosted by third-party providers and made available to users through the internet.
Cloud services facilitate the flow of user data from front-end clients (e.g., users’ servers, tablets, desktops, laptops—anything on the users’ ends), through the internet, to the provider’s systems, and back. Cloud services promote the building of cloud-native applications and the flexibility of working in the cloud. Users can access cloud services with nothing more than a computer, operating system, and internet connectivity.
How do cloud services work?
Cloud platforms
Cloud service providers can also use their hardware resources to create cloud platforms, which are online environments where users can develop code or run apps. Building a cloud platform requires more than just abstracting a computer’s capabilities from its hardware components—like when providing cloud infrastructure. Providing a cloud platform requires additional levels of development to incorporate technologies like containerization, orchestration, application programming interfaces (APIs), routing, security, management, and automation. User experience design (UX) is also an important consideration in order to create a navigable online experience.
Cloud platforms are a type of PaaS. And if the infrastructural components holding up the PaaS are highly scalable and sharable, it might be considered a cloud. The best examples of PaaS clouds include public clouds and managed private clouds.