This is owned and operated by third-party providers, who deliver the public cloud infrastructure through the Internet. The resources, such as compute, storage, and networking, are pooled and made available across many tenants. High scalability, rapid deployment, and cost-effectiveness are its primary characteristics, making it suitable for fluctuating workloads, development environments, and digital-first applications.

This is an organization-specific cloud, either hosted on-premises or managed by a third party. It increases control over data, security, and customization. Organizations typically use this model due to strict compliance issues, sensitive workloads, or the need for predictable performance.

A hybrid cloud combines both private and public environments, allowing data and applications to move from one environment to the other. This type of approach enables organizations to maintain highly sensitive data in private infrastructure while taking advantage of public cloud resources for scalability, backup, or burst capacity.

Multi-cloud is the arrangement of multiple cloud services while simultaneously using them from different providers. With this business model, organizations can reduce their reliance on vendors and gain resilience and the ability to decide the best-fit services for particular workloads. It helps to avail and optimize the performance on diverse cloud platforms across many different geographical locations.

Shared by organizations having common needs like industry regulations, security standards, or compliance needs. Infrastructure is jointly used and governed, with cost sharing with controls tailored to the specific community—such as healthcare, finance, or education sectors—maintained.