Similarities Between Cloud Computing and Insurance: Feasibility Study of Secondary Cloud Infrastructure

Abstract

This study reveals the fundamental isomorphism between cloud computing resource allocation and insurance risk dispersion mechanisms through mathematical modeling. Under the independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) assumption (demand/loss variables X_i ∼ Poissson(λi)), both systems share the core operational logic: VaR (p) < nVaR_i (p), demonstrating that centralized management of resource/risk pools significantly enhances efficiency. Key findings include 1. Shared pricing strategy: The maximum price that users are willing to accept, calculated as PM_i = λ_i(e ^k − 1)/k, is always greater than the provider’s minimum price λ_i. This implies that, under the assumptions of this paper, cloud computing transactions are always achievable. 2. Secondary Cloud Infrastructure: Inspired by excess-of loss reinsurance, we design a cross-cloud resource protocol where optimal threshold Ymi minimizes costs C_i = Ym_i + F_i . This research provides a theoretical foundation for applying actuarial models to cloud computing, particularly for elastic resource pricing and disaster recovery.

Received: 22 June 2025 | Revised: 17 October 2025 | Accepted: 14 November 2025

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study

Author Contribution Statement

Xiaobo Cai: Conceptualization, methodology, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing, visualization, supervision, project administration. Haifei Qin: Software, validation, investigation, resources, data curation, supervision, funding acquisition.