Infrastructure as a Service examples

IaaS

Infrastructure as a Service

Definition: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) describes one of the three main methods of accessing cloud computing based services. Organisations rent computing power and disk space and access them from desktop PCs through a private network or across the internet.

Placing IaaS in the Cloud Computing Model

IaaS has its roots in thin computing techniques that have been developing since the mid 1990s. But it was not adopted widely until virtualisation and fast, reliable and widespread internet access made it workable. Cloud computing in general refers to the idea that a company can rent space from a service provider and use it across the internet rather than having an IT infrastructure on their own premises.

There are broadly three varieties of cloud computing offerings, Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (Platform) being the other two. As all these services are still developing quickly the definitions and divisions between these varieties are nebulous at best and constantly shifting. There is considerable overlap in particular between IaaS and PaaS, and a service might find itself described as either of these depending on whether the description comes from a developer, system admin or a manager.

Description of IaaS

With IaaS the enterprise renting the service is likely to have considerable IT skills in-house because the infrastructure offered is quite plain. Customers select and basic software servers for their part of the cloud and then load up their libraries, applications and data then configure them themselves. Virtualisation enables IaaS providers to offer almost unlimited instances of servers to customers and make cost-effective use of the hosting hardware.

Organisations can use IaaS to quickly build new versions of applications or environments without having to order new hardware then wait for it to arrive and be configured. Another popular use of IaaS is hosting the websites of organisations. This keeps the website and its drain on IT resources away from an internal infrastructure whose primary purpose is to run the business, not the website. In these instances the IaaS provider takes on any worries about monitoring traffic and keeping the website available.

Cost Comparisons for IaaS Providers

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