Cloud cloud cloud, what a load of crap. Most of these benefits are benefits to the cloud providers. The expense of a usable linode is more than a dedicated server in colocation, and that colocation server will be 4-8x more powerful. And these guys are multiples more expensive? The cloud is a sham. Creating one's own "cloud" is easy. Don't be duped into paying for "cloud servers" when that same money gets you a physical server in colocation multiple times more powerful. Oh, you can't spin up more servers? Do you need to when your server is 4-8x times more powerful? Plus, you can run your own virtual machines if want to be able to brag about spinning up servers.