What Is a Cloud Server?
2026-10-27
De Novo Cloud Expert
A server can be deployed either in a customer’s own infrastructure or in a cloud provider’s environment. The latter is known as a cloud server. Unlike a physical server, a cloud server is not tied to a specific hardware node, data center, or single hosting location. In practice, it is a pool of resources—typically combining multiple physical servers—from which customers receive computing resources on demand, including virtual CPUs (vCPUs), memory, storage, and network interfaces.
In many cases, customers can also choose the operating system and other basic software for their cloud server during deployment. They can then install their own applications, database management systems, web servers, and other components on it, much as they would on a physical system. Multiple virtual servers can also be combined into a highly available architecture with load balancing, data backups, and disaster recovery mechanisms.