I've always lived by the motto "if it's not worth doing right, it's not worth doing."  The only machine I could have some degree of confidence in is bare metal in certain datacenters.  The cost of housing alone is significant and network connectivity is a lot beyond that.  Not to mention the cost and hassle of flying to a jurisdiction where I might have some confidence in the durability of the solution in a failure mode scenario that I (and the system I'm supporting) would be guarding against.  These were the standards I used when I was being paid for my services.