In a bid to reduce costs and enhance business continuity, more and more companies are transitioning from physical infrastructure computing services to online models. At the moment, the solution of Infrastructure as a Service, or IaaS is among their top choices even in the face of emerging models like SaaS (software as a service) and PaaS (platform as a service).
What is IaaS?
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is a type of cloud computing infrastructure that empowers end-users with more control over essential network and storage resources.
Instead of buying and managing a physical server, IaaS users can rent the resources that they need on a “pay-as-you-go” basis. This way, they can choose to pay for each type of resource separately, and only for the time they use it.
IaaS is a form of instant computing framework that became popular in the early 2010s. In less than a decade, it turned into the most-used cloud computing services. Only recently its pre-eminence has come under threat with the emergence of other cloud computing models like software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and serverless.
How Does IaaS Work?
An IaaS model consists of a system of both physical and virtual resources that when put together can run applications and workloads in the cloud depending. These resources include:
- Physical Data Centers
- Virtual Machines
- Software-Defined Networking
- Cloud Storage
An IaaS provider ensures access to these resources along with a broad range of services that include monitoring, log access, security, load balancing, and clustering among others. Some of the most popular examples of independent IaaS providers include Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
Users can build and run applications with IaaS resources through a wide area network (WAN) like the Internet. By using the provider’s services, they can also track expenses, monitor performance, and troubleshoot application problems.
Potential IaaS Use Cases
Cloud infrastructure as a service provides a wide range of use cases for both small and medium-sized companies, such as:
- Developing and running customer-facing websites
- Testing and deploying web applications
- Running popular business software and applications like SAP
- Backup and recovery for on-premises workloads
- Secure cloud data storage
- Website hosting
- Data backup and recovery
- Big Data analytics
- High-performance computing
- Data warehousing workloads
The Benefits of Using IaaS
While software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) are emerging as strong competitors, IaaS remains one of the most reliable cloud computing services on the market. End-users can run and host websites, develop countless applications, create and test workloads while having complete control over the costs.
However, IaaS is more than just a capital-saving solution for cloud computing. This instant computing infrastructure enables consumers to:
- Access data even during a storage disaster or outage
- Develop new applications in a few hours
- Scale resources according to market demands for specific applications
- Adapt quickly to fluctuating business conditions
- Save money on upgrading software or repairing hardware
- Benefit from better security than the one available on physical computing solutions
- Send new applications to consumers rapidly
There are numerous IaaS providers on the market. Customers have to weigh the benefits that come with the costs before paying for infrastructure as a service. The good news is that if they do not like the results, they can always opt for another provider and redeploy their applications on another infrastructure.
At Technical Action Group we are helping small and mid-sized businesses streamline operations, reduce cost and make the business more agile. Speak to a representative and discover the huge potential of IaaS for your business.