---
title: Cloud Provider
id: cloud-provider
date: 2018-04-12
short_description: >
  An organization that offers a cloud computing platform.

aka:
- Cloud Service Provider
tags:
- community
---
 A business or other organization that offers a cloud computing platform.

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Cloud providers, sometimes called Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), offer
cloud computing platforms or services.

Many cloud providers offer managed infrastructure (also called
Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS).
With managed infrastructure the cloud provider is responsible for
servers, storage, and networking while you manage layers on top of that
such as running a Kubernetes cluster.

You can also find Kubernetes as a managed service; sometimes called
Platform as a Service, or PaaS. With managed Kubernetes, your
cloud provider is responsible for the Kubernetes control plane as well
as the {{< glossary_tooltip term_id="node" text="nodes" >}} and the
infrastructure they rely on: networking, storage, and possibly other
elements such as load balancers.