What Is a Cloud Provider?

A cloud provider (often called a cloud service provider or simply CSP) is an organization that provides its customers with on-demand computing resources over the Internet. Cloud providers host compute resources in massive data centers and charge IT consumers based on pay-as-you-go subscription models. The three most common types of cloud services offered by CSPs are infrastructure as a service (IaaS), software as a service (SaaS), and platform as a service (PaaS).