Hello, friends!
As last week we discussed Software as a Service, it was but obvious for us to address the topic of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) this week, as they are both part of the huge service umbrella called 'Cloud Computing'.
Given the fact that increasingly more enterprises are transitioning towards the Cloud approach, IaaS is here to better serve their needs. Let us discover together more on this exquisite technology in the paragraphs to come!
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Infrastructure as a Service has been defined by our friends over at IBM as 'a form of cloud computing that delivers fundamental compute, network, and storage resources to consumers on-demand, over the internet, and on a pay-as-you-go basis. IaaS enables end users to scale and shrink resources on an as-needed basis, reducing the need for high, up-front capital expenditures or unnecessary “owned” infrastructure, especially in the case of “spiky” workloads'. Practically speaking, we're talking about computing insfrastructure available "for rent" from a vendor that is hosting it in the Cloud.
Pretty simple concept, is it not? What's more, the IaaS vendor not only provides the Cloud infrastructure, but also specific services that go hand in hand with it. We're talking access, security, clustering, backup and recovery to name a few. Being extremely policy-driven, they permit the users of Infrastructure as a Service to deploy a certain extent of orchestration, especially in the case of prioritary infrastructure tasks.
WHERE CAN IaaS BE USED?
The most common scenarios in which Infrastructure as a Service can be employed can be seen in the list displayed below:
testing & deployment - IaaS eases the processes within dev-test environments, accelerating the time needed to bring new apps into the market;
hosting of websites - IaaS provides a much more cost-effective way for hosting services;
storage, backup & recovery - since all those services are the responsibility of the vendor, the buyer not only benefits from their experience, but also reduces the burden on their own IT staff;
internet applications - all internet apps are supported when it comes to IaaS;
high-performance computing - a great deal of complex problems can be solved via the highly intelligent algorithms used in IaaS;
analysis of Big Data - via the incredible processing power within IaaS, Big Data analysis becomes a piece of cake.
IaaS BENEFITS
After comprehending the true nature of Infrastructure as a Service, the benefits it can yield to its users will be hard to miss. For example:
enhanced speed - the second a project is agreed upon, the business has the Cloud infrastructure ready for ready for deployment;
unequaled availability - being hosted in the Cloud, 'How do I connect do the infrastructure?' becomes a thing of the past;
lower OPEX - since the billing model is Pay-as-you go, IaaS become a much cheaper alternative to traditional IT;
crème de la crème security - as the infrastructure is provided by a vendor specialized in security solutions, chances are your enterprise will be getting better security than what you already have;
greater scalability - IaaS extent can easily be adjusted according to the business needs, being flexible in terms of upscale/downscale modifications.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The 'cloudification' of enterprises is one of the current big things to look at. More and more Cloud Computing services like IaaS are taking over traditional computing approaches, given that its benefits can now not be unseen. Stay tuned for more on Cloud Computing by subscribing to our Community blog!
