What is Cloud provisioning?

Cloud provisioning is user account provisioning in a cloud environment: The user’s authorization and settings are configured for services and applications located remotely and delivered over the Internet.

When a cloud provider accepts a request from a customer, it must create the appropriate number of virtual machines (VMs) and allocate resources to support them. The process is conducted in several different ways: advance provisioning, dynamic provisioning and user self-provisioning.  In this context, the term provisioning simply means to provide. With advance provisioning, the customer contracts with the provider for services and the provider prepares the appropriate resources in advance of start of service.

The customer is charged on a monthly basis. With dynamic provisioning, the provider allocates more resources as they are needed and removes them when they are not. The customer is billed on a pay-per-use basis. When dynamic provisioning is used to create a hybrid cloud, it is sometimes referred to as cloud bursting.