What is a hyperscaler? (2025)

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Overview What is a hyperscaler? How do I choose a vendor? Get the most out of hyperscalers with Red Hat FAQs

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Understanding cloud-native applications
What is a hyperscaler?

Published December 20, 2022 •

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Overview

Hyperscalers provide cloud computing and data management services to organizations that require vast infrastructure for large-scale data processing and storage. While there is no universal standard for what should be classified as a hyperscaler, major cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud,Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud fit the description.

What is a hyperscaler?

Hyperscalers get their name from hyperscale computing, a method of processing data that allows for software architecture to scale and grow as increased demand is added to the system.

Enterprise applications and data demand flexible environments that offer a reliable way to develop and deploy technologies such asartificial intelligence,internet of things (IoT),machine learning, and big data analytics. Hyperscalers are able to support these services on a grand scale, using multiple datacenters around the world, with thousands of physical servers running millions of virtual machines.

By providing access to a ready-made, scalable infrastructure, hyperscalers allow their clients the ability to experiment, build, innovate, and run any type of application, from a social network to a smart city to online banking, all while managing costs and working with agility. In addition, outsourcing infrastructure management frees developers to focus on building applications and gives operations teams more time to focus on innovation rather than maintenance.

In order for an app dev platform to successfully serve its user, it must provide continuous and secure development and deployment capabilities. The tools that may be utilized as part of the developers kit can include front-end tools for UI/UX creation, back-end tools for data services, or both.

How do I choose a vendor?

If you’re just starting out on your digital transformation journey, figuring out the best path forward can be daunting. Lack of in-house resources, time, or expertise make it challenging to build effective cloud architectures from scratch, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. In fact, many of the world’s largest enterprises use hyperscalers, and often choose more than one hyperscaler to partner with based on their individual business needs. Using more than one cloud provider is known as a multicloud approach. Unifying different clouds as a single platform supports a hybrid cloud strategy–in which applications work consistently across different environments, allowing for a single computing platform to span multiple clouds.

When it comes to deciding who to partner with, cloud committed spend is something to keep in mind. "Cloud committed spend" refers to an agreement between a provider and a customer to provide a discount on cost in exchange for the customer agreeing to spend a certain amount of money within a (typically) specified period of time. Basically, it’s a bulk discount offer: the more you buy, the bigger the savings.

Cloud providers have hundreds of partners with software and services, available in cloud marketplaces, that can be purchased using committed spend. For example, if you have cloud committed spend with Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure, you can use it to pay for Red Hat® OpenShift®, Red Hat Enterprise Linux®, and Red HatAnsible® Automation Platform.

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Get the most out of hyperscalers with Red Hat

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Ansible Automation Platform provides an enterprise framework for building and operating IT automation at scale. It addresses key automation use cases—including network, security, and cloud automation—and helps teams create, manage, and share automation across the enterprise.

Several Ansible Automation Platform deployment options—both managed and self-managed— are available for use with major cloud providers. Public cloud deployment options include:

Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure (managed and self-managed)
Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure Red Hat OpenShift (self-managed)
Ansible Automation Platform from AWS Marketplace (self-managed)
Ansible Automation Platform available from Google Cloud Marketplace (self-managed)

Learn more about Ansible Automation Platform deployment options

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linuxis certified for use with all major cloud service providers, including Microsoft Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud, as well as on hundreds of other public cloud and service providers, and thousands of other types of software and hardware. Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides a stable foundation for your cloud environments by offering consistency across infrastructure. This means you can deploy applications, workloads, and services with agility and streamline management across environments using the same set of tools.

Discover the value of Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat OpenShift

Red HatOpenShiftService on AWSis a fully managedapplication platform that allows you to focus on delivering value to your customers by building and deploying applications. Red Hat and AWS Site reliability engineering (SRE) experts manage the underlying platform so you don’t have to worry about the complexity of infrastructure management. Red HatOpenShiftService on AWS provides seamless integration with a wide range of AWS compute, database, analytics, machine learning, networking, mobile, and other services to further accelerate the building and delivering of differentiating experiences to your customers.

Get started with Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS

Microsoft Azure Red HatOpenShiftis an application platform that provides highly available, fully managed Red Hat OpenShift clusters on demand. Red Hat and Microsoft jointly engineer, manage, and support the platform, allowing organizations to increase operational efficiency, refocus on innovation, and quickly build, deploy, and scale applications.

Discover the benefits of Microsoft Azure Red Hat OpenShift

FAQs

What is an example of a hyperscaler? ›

AWS, with 32% of the hyperscaler market share (as of 2023) is the greatest example of a hyperscaler marketplace. Other hyperscaler marketplace examples include Azure by Microsoft, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), IBM Cloud, and Oracle.

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Why is AWS called a hyperscaler? ›

Among others, the three largest Cloud providers Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are jointly responsible for this. Due to their extensive range of services, these can scale almost indefinitely and are therefore also referred to as hyperscalers.

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What does a hyperscale do? ›

A hyperscale data center is a facility which houses critical compute and network infrastructure. These facilities allow companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to draw on their processing power to deliver key services to customers worldwide.

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What is the difference between hyperscale and cloud? ›

Hyperscale is a data center architecture. Cloud is a general working principle in IT (Software as a Service SAAS, etc). Cloud services typically are hosted in data centers, and accessed via internet. Hyperscale Data centers come with more than 5000 servers.

Who are the big three hyperscalers? ›

Hyperscale providers include the “big three”— Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP)—which, combined, control an estimated 65% of the cloud market.

Is Microsoft a hyperscaler? ›

While there is no universal standard for what should be classified as a hyperscaler, major cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud,Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud fit the description.

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What is the opposite of hyperscale? ›

Microscale computing

Where hyperscale refers to massive computing needs, microscale is at the opposite end of the spectrum. Electrical power, cooling, and hardware are self-contained.

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What is the difference between hyperscale and enterprise? ›

Hyperscale centers prioritize scalability, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness for large-scale applications, while enterprise centers focus on customization, flexibility, and tailored solutions for individual businesses.

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What is hyperscale vs Hyperconverged? ›

Hyperscale vs Hyperconverged

Unlike hyperscale architecture which separates computing from storage and networking functions, hyperconverged architecture integrates these components within pre-packaged, modular solutions.

What is hyperscaler terminology? ›

In a technology context, a hyperscaler refers to the industry-leading companies that provide massive and global cloud infrastructure and services. These hyperscalers have the capacity to handle enormous amounts of data, computing power, and network resources.

What are the 4 hyperscalers? ›

Hyperscale refers to a computing infrastructure's ability to rapidly and efficiently scale with demand, especially in data centers and cloud platforms, by adding resources like servers and storage. Key hyperscalers include AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Meta Platforms, Apple, and TikTok.