17.5 Cloud Deployment

Cloud deployment means running your model on rented infrastructure (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, or local providers like AletCloud) instead of a single machine you own. The cloud gives you on-demand compute, automatic scaling when traffic spikes, and managed services so a small team can serve millions of requests reliably.

An Ethiopian e-commerce startup gets normal traffic on weekdays but a huge spike during a holiday sale. With cloud auto-scaling, extra model servers start automatically during the rush and shut down afterward — so the company pays for big capacity only during the few peak hours instead of owning idle servers all year.