01 May 2026
Benefits of cloud services for analytics and AI
Cloud services are now foundational to modern IT, giving organizations access to computing resources using an internet connection instead of building and maintaining everything on-site.
This helps startups move fast, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) control costs and large enterprises modernize legacy systems, while supporting agility, resilience and competitiveness.
This article covers the advantages of cloud computing services and managed cloud, including core infrastructure components, delivery models and the strategic value of scalability, security and cloud sovereignty.
Managed cloud services explained
Cloud services provide on-demand access to shared computing resources that can be provisioned and released quickly. On the other hand, managed cloud services add expert, third-party operations. This allows a third party to run and support an organization’s cloud environment 24/7, handling day-to-day administration and helping maintain business continuity.
There are three common service categories (types of cloud computing), which are also the main types of cloud services:
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): virtual machines, networking and storage that replace physical hardware.
- Platform as a Service (PaaS): managed environments for developing, testing and deploying applications.
- Software as a Service (SaaS): finished applications delivered through a browser.
These services can be deployed through different delivery models, including public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud and hybrid multicloud.
Who are the major cloud providers?
The major cloud providers include Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). These hyperscalers deliver global platforms with on-demand compute, storage, networking and advanced services for building and running modern applications.
Together, they offer capabilities such as infrastructure, managed databases and security features that support rapid innovation at enterprise scale.
According to Ben Heller, Field CTO and Director of GenAI Transformation at Microsoft: “Microsoft Azure is a cloud platform that empowers organizations and governments with flexibility to build and deploy with confidence.”
What are the core components of cloud infrastructure?
To understand why cloud services are so powerful, it helps to understand what they’re built on. While the cloud feels abstract, it is a very real infrastructure operated at a massive scale, made up of both hardware and software. The major core components include:
Remote data centers
Cloud providers operate remote data centers around the world. A data center is a large facility filled with computing, storage and networking equipment. These data centers are geographically distributed to improve availability, support disaster recovery and reduce latency by placing resources closer to users.
Key characteristics of cloud data centers include:
- Redundant power, cooling and connectivity.
- Physical security controls.
- High availability design to minimize downtime.
- Regional architecture to support compliance and data residency needs.
For organizations, this means access to enterprise-grade facilities without having to build or manage them directly.
Servers (compute)
At the heart of cloud infrastructure are servers, which provide compute power for running operating systems, applications, containers, databases and analytics workloads. Cloud computing abstracts servers into flexible resources that can be allocated dynamically. Instead of owning a server, you get compute capacity you can consume.
Compute options often include:
- Virtual machines (VMs) for traditional workloads.
- Containers for lightweight, portable deployment.
- Serverless computing for event-driven tasks without server management.
- Specialized hardware (GPUs, TPUs) for AI/machine learning and high-performance computing.
The result is faster provisioning, easier scaling and the ability to match compute types to the workload.
Storage systems
Cloud storage systems provide durable, elastic data storage for everything from documents and media files to backups, data lakes and databases. Cloud providers typically offer multiple storage types optimized for different needs:
- Object storage (e.g., for unstructured data, data lakes, backups).
- Block storage (e.g., for VM disks and performance-sensitive workloads).
- File storage (e.g., for shared file systems and legacy apps).
- Archive/cold storage (e.g., for long-term retention at lower cost).
Storage is foundational to the cloud’s value. It allows organizations to scale storage, support backup and disaster recovery, implement retention policies, replicate across regions and integrate with analytics and AI pipelines. All while reliably storing data where it’s needed.
Networking and connectivity
Networking binds everything together. Cloud networking includes virtual networks, load balancers, DNS, gateways, firewalls and private connectivity options. These capabilities allow cloud resources to behave like a secure, well-architected extension of your environment, often with more sophisticated controls than many organizations can implement on-site.
Benefits of cloud computing: Better use of time, talent and investment
Efficiency is where cloud benefits often become measurable. By streamlining operations and improving utilization, cloud platforms reduce time spent maintaining infrastructure and shift effort toward delivering value. Often with sustainability benefits when workloads are consolidated and managed efficiently.
Savings typically come from reduced operational overhead. Cloud providers handle much of the undifferentiated heavy lifting, like hardware and data center operations, baseline security controls, and many patching and maintenance tasks.
- Pay-as-you-go economics and cost savings. The cloud introduces more granular consumption-based pricing models. Instead of large upfront capital expenditure, companies can align costs to usage. Many platforms also provide tools for cost monitoring, tagging and forecasting so teams can better understand where resources are consumed and how to optimize.
- Automation and standardization. Infrastructure-as-code, policy-as-code, automated scaling and managed services can significantly reduce manual work and configuration drift. Standardized templates and automated deployment pipelines also reduce errors, shorten release cycles and support more reliable operations.
- Faster development cycles. Developers can access managed databases, messaging, container orchestration and analytics tools without building them from scratch. This shortens build times and allows teams to deliver features sooner.
- Only pay for the resources used. It’s about getting more value per hour and per expense, particularly as organizations embrace FinOps practices and automation. It also reduces the organization’s carbon footprint.
New dynamics with cloud sovereignty
Cloud sovereignty is getting a lot of attention lately. It’s the ability to manage data security and operations under the control of a specific jurisdiction’s laws and governance. Cloud providers support sovereignty through a combination of technical controls, operational practices and legal safeguards designed to keep data subject to specific national or regional laws.
How do they do it? First, they offer data residency and regional isolation, allowing customers to store and process data within designated countries or sovereign regions. Second, they implement strong access controls, including customer‑managed encryption keys, identity and access management (IAM) and role separation. This is carefully designed so access is limited to only authorized personnel, helping protect sensitive data. Third, providers support encryption at rest and in transit, often with access models so customers retain cryptographic control. Many operate sovereign or government cloud offerings with dedicated infrastructure, locally governed operations and compliance with country‑specific regulations.
Finally, cloud sovereignty is reinforced through contractual commitments, auditability and transparency. Together, these measures allow organizations to use cloud services while maintaining control over where data resides, who can access it and which laws apply.
Putting it all together: Cloud as an operating model, not just a technology
Cloud-based services are more than a technical migration. They are a shift in operating models. The greatest value comes when architecture choices (public, private, hybrid or hybrid multicloud) are paired with clear governance, strong financial management, disciplined automation and security by design. These practices make the cloud a foundation for rapid innovation and operational efficiency, while ensuring business continuity.
Who benefits from managed cloud services?
Life sciences
Life sciences organizations operate in GxP-regulated environments and must maintain validated, inspection-ready systems with audit trails, change control and documentation to meet requirements such as 21 CFR Part 11. That means coordinating upgrades, patching and infrastructure changes without jeopardizing validated state, which is an ongoing operational burden.
Many pharma, biotech and medtech organizations also depend on complex on-premises clinical and analytics platforms originally built to support regulatory submissions, making migration difficult because data integrity, lineage and reproducibility must be preserved. With limited specialized cloud and data skills, teams often lack the bandwidth to run compliant operations end-to-end while maintaining current validation evidence. As clinical trials, real-world evidence, safety and operational data grow in volume and complexity, hosted managed services can deliver secure, governed scalability and consistent, regulatory-ready controls without adding internal overhead.
Insurance
Insurers operate in a highly regulated, data-intensive environment where uptime, governance and scalability are nonnegotiable. Managed services help insurance organizations modernize legacy analytics environments, maintain continuous regulatory readiness and scale decisioning capabilities. All without diverting scarce actuarial and data science talent to infrastructure management. By offloading operational complexity, insurers can focus on improving underwriting accuracy, accelerating claims decisions and delivering measurable business outcomes while maintaining trust and compliance.
Banking
Banks operate under intense regulatory scrutiny with rising expectations for security, access controls, auditability, operational transparency, resilience and disaster recovery. Maintaining these controls is resource intensive. Managed cloud services can shift day-to-day operational responsibility while keeping environments inspection ready.
Hosted managed cloud services offer a lower-risk path through hybrid or phased adoption, reducing dependence on aging infrastructure while improving scalability and performance. As transaction volumes rise and real-time payments increase latency and throughput demands, managed environments can provide reliable, high-performance analytics without constant tuning or infrastructure work slowing the business.
Public sector
Governments face flat or declining budgets, expanding mandates and difficulty hiring and retaining specialized IT, cloud and security talent. This leaves internal teams stuck in maintenance while citizens expect fast, transparent and digital-first services. Managed cloud services shift routine operations like infrastructure management off internal staff. This creates a more predictable operating model, improving reliability during demand spikes and freeing teams to focus on mission outcomes.
Fraud and cyberthreats are also growing more sophisticated as modernization expands the attack surface, while oversight and compliance expectations demand auditability and consistent controls. Managed cloud services provide continuously monitored, secure environments and scalable analytics for fraud detection. This ultimately reduces gaps from inconsistent patching and manual processes to support continuous compliance. Managed cloud services allow agencies to focus on response and accountability rather than infrastructure upkeep.
Are you ready for managed cloud services?
Cloud services can deliver flexibility, efficiency and strategic value, but realizing those benefits consistently requires strong operational discipline. Managed cloud services can help reduce day-to-day overhead, enable automation and support resilience, so teams can focus more on innovation and outcomes.
SAS® Managed Cloud Services are managed offerings where SAS designs, deploys, hosts (or remotely manages) and operates your SAS environment end-to-end. The goal is to offload day-to-day operations (monitoring, optimization, updates, security, backups and administration) so teams can focus on using analytics and AI to drive business outcomes.
The future for SAS Managed Cloud Services is proactive monitoring and optimization powered by AI. We’ve already embedded automation into service delivery, reducing downtime and improving customer experience. These AI-infused operations will enable us to predict issues before they occur and continuously optimize performance. Trustworthy AI principles guide our roadmap with embedded safeguards to drive efficiency and resilience.Neil Workman VP of Cloud and Information Services, EMEA SAS
Resources to learn more:
Blog series
SAS Managed Cloud blog series
Success stories
Cloud customer success stories
Solution page
SAS Managed Cloud Services
