Describe cloud concepts
Cloud Concepts and Responsibility
ImportantDefine cloud computing and keep provider duties separate from customer duties.
Aligned to the AZ-900 skills measured as of July 20, 2026; product behavior verified August 23, 2026.
Why this matters
Every later Azure choice rests on understanding what is delivered as a service and which responsibilities do not disappear when infrastructure moves to a provider.
Must Know
- Cloud computing delivers computing resources and services over a network so capacity can be obtained without owning every layer of physical infrastructure.
- Shared responsibility divides duties between the cloud provider and the customer. The exact boundary changes with IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.
- The provider always manages the physical datacenter, physical network, and physical hosts in an Azure cloud service.
- Customers retain responsibility for their data, identities, accounts, access decisions, and the configuration of the components they control.
- Moving from IaaS toward SaaS transfers more platform and application operation to the provider, but it never transfers all accountability for customer data and access.
Compare and Distinguish
- Cloud computing vs Azure: cloud computing is the general delivery model; Azure is one provider and product portfolio that implements it.
- IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS responsibility: customers manage the guest operating system in IaaS, focus on applications and data in PaaS, and consume a provider-operated application in SaaS.
- Provider security vs customer security: provider controls do not classify the customer’s data, choose who may sign in, or decide who should have access.
Scenario examples
- A retailer obtains temporary compute capacity for a seasonal peak instead of buying enough physical servers for the annual maximum.
- A SaaS provider operates the application, but the customer still decides which employees receive accounts and how organizational data is classified.
- A team using an Azure VM relies on Microsoft for the physical host while remaining responsible for the guest operating system and its configuration.
Exam traps
- Cloud computing does not mean Azure specifically, and remote access to an owned server does not by itself create a cloud service.
- SaaS does not make the provider responsible for the customer’s users, data classification, or access decisions.
- Shared responsibility is a changing boundary, not a claim that provider and customer always perform equal work.
Key takeaways
- Cloud is a service-delivery model; Azure is a cloud platform.
- Know which stack layers move to the provider as the service model changes.
- Data, identities, and access decisions remain customer concerns.
Ready for the quiz?
- How is cloud computing broader than Azure?
- Which responsibilities remain with a SaaS customer?
- Who manages the guest operating system in IaaS?
Related objectives
- D1.1.S1 — Define cloud computing
- D1.1.S2 — Describe the shared responsibility model