Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform are the infrastructure foundations of the modern internet. The world’s largest companies — and the startups disrupting them — run on these platforms. For a small business trying to decide whether they need any of this, the question is not straightforward.
The short answer: probably not directly, but you’re likely using these platforms already through the services you use, and understanding the basics helps you make better decisions.
What Cloud Infrastructure Platforms Actually Are
AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud are not software products you use directly. They are platforms that provide computing infrastructure — servers, storage, databases, networking — that other services and applications are built on.
When you use Xero, your accounting data probably sits on AWS. When you use Microsoft 365, you’re on Azure. When you use Google Workspace, you’re on Google Cloud. You’re already a consumer of these platforms, mediated by the software companies that built on top of them.
Where businesses start to use these platforms directly is when they:
- Have a custom application or website that needs hosting infrastructure
- Process or store data at a scale or complexity that SaaS tools don’t accommodate
- Have a development team building software
- Need specific capabilities — databases, AI/ML services, streaming — that aren’t available through their existing SaaS tools
When Direct Cloud Infrastructure Makes Sense for an SMB
Custom web applications. If your business has a custom-built web application — a booking system, a customer portal, a data processing tool — it needs somewhere to run. Cloud platforms provide the infrastructure to host it reliably and scalably.
Growing e-commerce. A small Shopify store is fine on managed hosting. A business processing significant transaction volumes with custom integrations may benefit from cloud infrastructure that can scale.
Data processing and storage at scale. If your business generates or processes large volumes of data that standard tools struggle with, cloud databases and storage services offer scalable options.
Regulated industries. Some healthcare, financial, and legal businesses have data sovereignty and compliance requirements that dictate specific infrastructure configurations — which cloud platforms support.
For most small businesses that rely on standard SaaS tools and a website, direct engagement with AWS or Azure is unnecessary.
What Cloud Infrastructure Actually Costs
This is where many businesses get into difficulty. Cloud infrastructure is priced on consumption — you pay for what you use, by the hour or by the gigabyte. This is genuinely flexible, but it also means costs can be unpredictable and, without proper monitoring, can escalate unexpectedly.
Horror stories of unexpected cloud bills are common. A misconfigured service running unnecessarily, a storage bucket filling with logs, a database instance left on when it should be shut down — these accumulate into surprising invoices.
The key principles for cost management in cloud infrastructure:
Right-size resources. Don’t run a large server to host a small application. Start smaller than you think you need and scale up when the evidence supports it.
Use reserved or committed-use pricing. If you know you’ll need a particular resource continuously, committing to one or three years gives significant discounts versus on-demand pricing.
Monitor and alert on spending. Set up billing alerts so that unexpected cost increases trigger notifications before the invoice arrives.
Regularly review what’s running. Resources provisioned for a project and forgotten about are a common source of unnecessary cost. A quarterly review of what’s running and whether it’s still needed is basic hygiene.
Security Considerations for Cloud Infrastructure
Cloud infrastructure operates on a shared responsibility model: the provider secures the underlying infrastructure; you are responsible for how you configure and use it.
Common configuration mistakes in cloud infrastructure include:
- Storage buckets or databases left publicly accessible that should be private
- Overly permissive access policies that give more access than needed
- Lack of encryption on sensitive data at rest
- No logging or monitoring of who is accessing what
- Default credentials left on provisioned services
A misconfigured S3 bucket (AWS’s storage service) leaving customer data publicly accessible has been the cause of numerous high-profile data breaches. Configuration security is the customer’s responsibility, not AWS’s.
W3IT works with small businesses to design, manage, and secure appropriate cloud infrastructure. For businesses that need it, we can design a sensible architecture on AWS or Cloudflare that fits the budget and the actual requirements — not an over-engineered solution that exceeds them. For businesses that don’t need it, we’ll tell you so.