How does scaling work in the Cloud?

Scalability is an important requirement companies have for their systems. So you need to make sure that as your business grows, your Cloud systems simply grow with it. They need to be scalable. Scalability means that computing power, server capacity, and other resources grow or shrink exactly as you (or your company) need them. And that's exactly what the Atlassian Cloud allows you to do. 

Why do I scale better and faster in the Cloud than in an on-premises solution?

The answer to this question has primarily to do with the effort involved: The manual effort for scaling, as you know it from your on-premises instances, is significantly less in the Cloud than in the server and data center - or even completely eliminated! 

Scaling on-premises not only requires long and careful planning, but also consumes time, resources, and the capacities of your employees. As your business grows and you have more users, your IT professionals will either need to add more computing power (CPU, RAM) to existing machines (vertical scaling) or buy new servers/machines (horizontal scaling). To make matters worse, your team has to estimate roughly how much "more" is needed. If this estimate is way off, you will either pay too much (for resources you don't need) or you will have to make multiple adjustments and upgrades.

It's different in the Cloud: similar things happen here, but since the corresponding resources - i.e. the machines and systems - are already available on a large scale, there is no need for a lengthy, time-consuming coordination and upgrade process like you would have "in-house".