Depending on your needs and uses for R, it can be convenient to have a reasonable amount of memory and processor capability. Often this power is necessary only on occasion, and it may not be cost-effective to own the hardware. This is where hosting R on the cloud may be helpful. Cloud instances bring on-demand resources that are readily scaled up or down as each situation requires. These days, there are several groups that provide such services at very reasonable prices. The challenge we face is threefold, and we walk through those steps over the next three chapters. We need to get a cloud, we need to administer our cloud’s operating system (in some cases), and we need to do some fun things with R.