Cloud Computing & Hosting

Cloud computing has transformed how enterprises plan and deliver development projects. What began as a shift toward outsourcing infrastructure for cost savings has now evolved into cloud-native, multi-cloud, and edge-first strategies that prioritize resilience, flexibility, and intelligent automation.

Traditionally, development projects were seen in isolation—focused on solving immediate problems within the constraints of in-house IT. This often left organizations bound by rigid infrastructure choices. Today, however, cloud software development is framed within the broader enterprise and ecosystem context, with architectures designed to scale and adapt continuously.

Private cloud is no longer a restrictive alternative to public cloud. With AI-driven automation, hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), and edge computing, on-premises systems can now complement public cloud deployments as part of hybrid and multi-cloud environments. This allows businesses to balance regulatory, performance, and cost considerations while avoiding lock-in to a single provider.

While APIs remain a foundation for integration, modern cloud-native systems rely heavily on:

• Event-driven architectures (e.g., Apache Kafka, AWS EventBridge) for real-time responsiveness.
• Service meshes (e.g., Istio, Linkerd) to manage and secure communication between microservices.
• AI-augmented API gateways that streamline development, sometimes using large language models to auto-generate documentation and endpoints.

Another defining trend is the rise of autonomous cloud environments that self-heal, self-scale, and self-optimize without manual intervention. Multi-cloud and distributed cloud strategies are now dominant, spreading workloads across providers for resilience and geographic performance. Meanwhile, edge computing platforms like AWS Outposts and Azure Arc process data closer to its source, reducing latency for real-time use cases.

Finally, technologies like WebAssembly (Wasm) are reshaping cloud workloads, enabling portable, lightweight execution environments beyond traditional virtual machines and containers.

In this new paradigm, cloud software development is no longer just a “tool for project delivery.” It is the foundation of enterprise strategy—building systems that are adaptive, intelligent, and designed for long-term sustainability across a distributed digital landscape.

The essence of an operating system is still data and programming code—but in the cloud era, the difference lies in where that data lives and how workloads are executed. Traditional server hosting options such as shared servers, dedicated servers, co-location, or basic virtual machines have largely been replaced by elastic, cloud-native platforms that scale globally and intelligently.

Today, the cloud computing market continues to grow at unprecedented scale, with organisations of all sizes running services across Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and a variety of specialised providers like Oracle Cloud (databases), IBM Cloud, and regional hyperscalers such as Alibaba Cloud. Rather than relying solely on virtual machines, most workloads now run on serverless platforms, managed container services, and fully managed databases.

Key developments include:

• Billing Models – Cloud providers now offer per-second or even millisecond-level billing, making it possible to pay only for precise usage. Reserved Instances remain, but are often replaced by more flexible Savings Plans.
• Compute Models – While virtual machines still exist, many developers now prefer containers (e.g., Kubernetes) and serverless functions (AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Google Cloud Functions) for faster scaling and reduced operational overhead.
• Load Balancing & Scaling – Traditional load balancing and auto scaling have been enhanced with AI-driven predictive scaling and multi-cloud service meshes (e.g., AWS App Mesh, Istio), enabling smarter resource allocation across distributed systems.
• AI Integration – Providers now deliver pre-trained AI and machine learning models as part of their service stacks (e.g., AWS Bedrock, Azure OpenAI Service), making advanced AI capabilities accessible without requiring teams to train their own models.
• Software as a Service (SaaS) – SaaS platforms remain central to business workflows, with Microsoft 365 (rebranded from Office 365) integrating AI assistants like Copilot, and collaboration tools such as Teams and Loop redefining productivity.

Cloud platforms today are no longer just about “hosting.” They are ecosystems for innovation, providing infrastructure, services, and intelligence that allow organisations to scale from startup to enterprise with global reach. By combining serverless, managed services, AI-driven automation, and flexible pricing, cloud hosting offers unparalleled efficiency, agility, and power compared to the rigid hosting models of the past. See the Amazon Web Services page for more information, including how Blueberry can help your business to make best use of the platform.

Given that the focus in enterprise oriented applications is on the business processes you’re looking to implement, any capable development team has to be equipped with a diverse range of technological skills to choose from.

Blueberry has strong experience in enterprise oriented applications, cloud service models and API handing. As a company we have overseen many cloud computing projects that have led to successful project outcomes.

This includes our own software product for the AWS environment, called Cloud Machine Manager (CMM). CMM reduces AWS server bills by providing real-time on-demand control of EC2 instances, allowing customers to switch their servers on or off as needed from either a desktop or smartphone. In addition, CMM can automatically stop and start servers based on their usage, so if your servers aren’t being used for a significant portion of the day, CMM could significantly reduce your AWS bill.   If CMM sounds interesting, give it a free try here.

Blueberry is happy to take a flexible approach to delivering Cloud services. Since we are not tied to one platform, set of languages or even methodology, we can implement bespoke systems using whichever technologies are best placed to serve your organisation.

As a company, Blueberry is accustomed to understanding and facilitating enterprise processes, so we are especially well positioned to bring the power of the Cloud to businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Many forward-looking businesses have adopted flexible working practices in recent years, not just in terms of technology but also management. Cloud computing is perfectly placed to deliver internal IT systems in such contexts, for example in situations where personnel have no fixed workstations, and applications must be accessed from a remote location.

If you’re in the market for a Cloud solution, give us a call.