This document discusses the differences between cloud, colocation, and bare metal infrastructure options. It covers key considerations for performance including CPU, memory, disk, and network latency and bandwidth. Colocation provides hardware at a specific location while maintaining internal skills, but has costs for total spend, hardware specifications, and power usage. Cloud infrastructure offers elastic workloads and support for demand spikes and unknown requirements, but bare metal is preferable for managed hardware replacement and networking needs. Overall, the best option depends on an organization's specific workload characteristics and skills.