An Introduction to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Published on 03 May 13

Jamie 2

IaaS (infrastructure as a service) may not account for the largest amount of spending in the cloud industry at the moment, but it happens to be the service that is seeing the most growth as businesses across the world start to take advantage of its various benefits.

If IaaS is still a mystery to you, this article will hopefully establish the key facts and help you decide whether or not you should adopt such a platform in the future.

Infrastructure as a Service is one of the key technologies involved in the provision of cloud computing at the moment. IaaS actually encompasses a range of other cloud-oriented services, although it is of course important to understand its function and application before you can delve deeper into this particular market.

IaaS - The Basics

In short, IaaS describes a relationship between a business and a service provider in which the former hands over the responsibility for IT equipment to the latter. This is as opposed to the previously necessary arrangement by which most companies needed to buy, install and maintain a number of different hardware solutions internally in order to cater to their IT requirements. IaaS is essentially the modern alternative to investing in on-premises networking and server hardware, which in the past would have been an expensive and high-maintenance solution for businesses.

With IaaS, a third-party provider is instead responsible for all the infrastructural elements that provide services such as data storage and processing power for software apps, which are designed for business users. That includes taking care of housing the hardware in an appropriate environment, providing it with the care it needs to run smoothly and also making upgrades as an when appropriate.

An IaaS provider will be able to offer everything from processing capacity and data storage to networking hardware and bandwidth. Providers effectively turn these into utilities that can be purchased on demand and paid for based on usage.

A cloud provider is able to offer these capabilities because it will typically be responsible for a number of data centres that have the server and network resources necessary to keep up with demand.

Although the technical aspects may be complicated, businesses will experience a seamless service as the end result, which helps to enhance the status of this type of IT platform as an easily distributable and accessible utility. Provided that your company has a high-speed network connection, there is little reason to avoid the allure of IaaS.

IaaS - The Key Benefits

The main benefit of IaaS is affordability, because the economies of scale made available by dedicated cloud hosting providers means that the expenses associated with running server hardware and networking equipment are in the hands of external experts. This leaves businesses free to invest in capable IT infrastructures while still maintaining a tight grip on the budget.

Another impressive benefit of IaaS is the scalability that it offers companies that choose to adopt it. Rather than being restricted by the physical limitations of on-site systems, a business can expect to be able to have their requirements met by remotely hosted hardware of which they can use as much or as little as is required at any given time.

This means that when the need for processing capacity or storage is low, a company will be just as ably served by an IaaS provider as they would if they were taking care of everything internally. Then when demand increases they can simply increase their requirements without encountering any kind of bottleneck. In turn, this leads to improved cost-effectiveness, which comes from the on-demand nature of IaaS.

This on-demand approach, where companies only pay for what they use, means that IaaS is very cost-effective. Without this, businesses would either find that they have to invest in vast IT resources that are only operating at full capacity for a fraction of the time, or make do with systems that are often unfit for purpose when peak periods occur.

Since businesses will only pay for what they use and will not be charged unless their capacity requirements increase, IaaS is a much more sustainable and financially efficient approach than many other solutions.

The cost savings continue to stack up when you consider the other advantages of IaaS, such as the fact that because your company will not be responsible for buying or upgrading any hardware or software, nor maintaining these systems, you can avoid additional IT expenses.

For smaller companies this means that you can adopt high-end platforms without also having to hire permanent support staff with the expertise necessary to keep everything running smoothly. This lowers the barrier to entry and means that there is a far more level playing field in the modern market.

Is IaaS adoption simple?

Those businesses which might consider adopting IaaS can do so with relative ease, because unlike on-site projects there is no need to await the delivery and installation of hardware and networking elements.

Instead, the third-party provider can get your service going quickly and give you access to whatever servers, bandwidth or software you need.

The scalability of IaaS comes into play once again, because businesses can sign up for a variety of bespoke packages that are able to fit in exactly with what they require at a given time, but which still have the option of being expanded further down the line.

This means that small, medium and large businesses can harness IaaS and begin to reap its benefits with minimal delay, which allows for a levelling of the playing field and a narrowing of the gap between the type of IT set-ups that companies of different sizes are able to access.

At the moment the growth in adoption of IaaS is faster than some other cloud-based solutions, such as SaaS (Software as a Service). This shows that there is a real desire amongst businesses to start benefiting from an outsourced IT environment.

Experts believe that IaaS might eventually overtake software as a service (SaaS) and account for the largest chunk of the international cloud market. When you examine the benefits of the technology, it is easy to appreciate why this might be the case.

This article is supplied by Jamie Garner, who works for Daisy Group, a leading UK-based IaaS provider.

This blog is listed under Cloud Computing Community

Share this Post: