Summary of Cloud Deployment Models
A cloud deployment model answers two core questions: where your infrastructure runs and who operates it. The main models—Public, Private, Hybrid, and Multi-Cloud—each balance control, flexibility, cost, and compliance differently, and a clear cloud deployment models diagram helps visualise these trade-offs.
1. Public Cloud
- What it is: Shared infrastructure owned and managed by third-party providers (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP), delivered over the internet.
- Key traits:
- Pay-as-you-go, no upfront hardware costs.
- Massive, elastic scalability (ideal for traffic spikes and variable workloads).
- Shared responsibility model for security: provider secures the cloud; you secure what you run in it.
- Less granular control over underlying hardware.
- Risk of bill shock without good cost management (FinOps).
- Best for:
- Startups and SMBs.
- Variable or unpredictable workloads.
- Dev/test environments and rapid experimentation.
