A cloud workload refers to the computing resources and tasks that are required to run an application or service in a cloud computing environment. This can include resources such as virtual machines, storage, and networking, as well as the software and applications that run on those resources.
Cloud workloads are typically managed and scaled using cloud -native tools and services, such as Kubernetes, a container orchestrator, or tools provided by cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
Cloud workloads are rapidly growing - over 504 million workloads were deployed in 2021, up by 48% in two years. The most common deployment model is software as a service (SaaS), used for 76% of all workloads. Next up are infrastructure as a service (IaaS) with 15% of workloads, and platform as a service (PaaS) with 9% of workloads.