Cloud service providers: Top clouds and how to choose your cloud provider

Cloud computing provides cloud services, including cloud infrastructure such as servers, cloud storage, databases, and more, virtually via an internet connection, so that websites and applications do not need to own and manage their own servers or data centers. Cloud computing makes it extremely easy for anyone to get access to cloud infrastructure at a low cost and without the overhead required for setting up physical servers. There are many cloud computing providers today, with some of the largest including Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Alibaba Cloud for the Chinese cloud market, Microsoft Azure, Dell Technologies Cloud, and IBM Cloud. Smaller providers like DigitalOcean also provide cloud computing services tailored to the needs of specific groups, such as small businesses and startups. The cloud infrastructure market has grown hugely over the past decade, and cloud service providers now have a combined market size of over $569 billion dollars in 2022.

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a service (SaaS) are different services that are often provided by one cloud service provider. IaaS is a type of cloud computing that gives users complete control over their virtual server or infrastructure configuration, without having to manage the underlying physical servers. Platform as a Service allows users to build applications without managing the operating system, runtime, or other infrastructure components of their server. SaaS are very common, and give users an interface to work with without needing to configure any backend technology - many emerging technologies are built as SaaS tools, such as those which allow you to view customer data, send emails, or conduct other regular business processes such as marketing and sales.

There are many cloud service providers out there, from large public clouds like Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, to regional or more niche cloud service providers who focus on a specific region or type of cloud computing. Cloud providers like DigitalOcean give users a range of services including managed services such as managed databases and managed Kubernetes, virtual machines or virtual private servers, managed web hosting through Cloudways by DigitalOcean, and even GPUs for artificial intelligence computing services from Paperspace by DigitalOcean.

Choosing a cloud provider comes down to the cloud computing products a business is looking to use, such as infrastructure as a service offerings, cloud security products, database services, edge computing services, and more. Cloud costs are also an important factor in choosing a cloud computing provider, as are factors like reliability and cloud security. Many cloud services offer service level agreements or SLAs which provide peace of mind around cloud uptime.

Different cloud service providers also offer differing cloud infrastructure and data center locations, which can be important if your application’s users are coming from a specific region or are located around the world. Large cloud providers like Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Microsoft Azure have large data center networks, but also often have higher costs, especially for inter-region data transfer.

There are multiple options available for a new application or website looking to choose a cloud service provider. When thinking about cloud computing, most businesses today will use public cloud services, though some large enterprises may create a private cloud where they utilize their own data centers and on-premises hardware. A private cloud is usually not the first choice for smaller businesses, who can benefit from the easily accessible cloud computing services available from public cloud service providers. Hybrid cloud models mean that the user both uses a public cloud service provider and also some on-premises data center servers, and may be used if a business has a specific need for some on-premises servers.

Multi-cloud models are often popular amongst businesses who want to take advantage of different products or features from multiple clouds, for example if one cloud service provider has beneficial pricing for bandwidth, but another has a good product for data analytics, a simple storage service, or software as a service offerings that they want to take advantage of in addition to their computing infrastructure. While there isn’t one multi-cloud provider, different cloud providers can be combined to create a multi-cloud model. Whether you choose a single cloud services provider, a hybrid cloud model, or a multi-cloud model depends on your specific needs and how you want to set up and manage your cloud infrastructure.

The top cloud service providers include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure Cloud, Google Cloud Platform, the third largest hosting company. While these three cloud service providers are the top by market share, there are many other cloud services providers that offer similar services, often with less complexity, a smaller range of products, and sometimes a lower cost. DigitalOcean is an excellent alternative to these three top cloud service providers, as it offers many cloud computing services, including CPU compute, databases, GPUs to support artificial intelligence, and Kubernetes, but has lower bandwidth costs and more simple services than many larger providers. Other alternative cloud platforms include IMB Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and Dell Technologies Cloud service provider. All of these providers offer a range of cloud resources and cloud based services, but have differences in the specific services they offer, cloud costs, data center locations, and more.