In a modern business environment, all businesses rely on an IT infrastructure. Not doing so would mean not growing and consequently innovating.
However, each company has specific needs that require different types of infrastructure. In this article, because Cloud Provider and suppliers of IaaS, we would like to share the main concepts of Infrastructure as a Service, the benefits and the links with neighboring worlds, such as the Cloud Native one.
What does IaaS mean?
Let's start at the beginning: IaaS, or Infrastructure as a Service, is a cloud computing model that provides on-demand access to computing resources such as servers, storage, networking, and virtualization.
In simple words, an IaaS solution provides customers with a complete IT infrastructure, including servers, networks, storage, and more, usually on a pay-per-use basis.
This means that in an IaaS environment, unlike a traditional IT infrastructure, users can scale resources dynamically and quickly, without worrying about physically managing the hardware.
This model is particularly convenient as it allows you to delegate the purchase, maintenance and management of hardware and equipment to the provider, as well as the investment in physical spaces.
When is IaaS useful?
One of the main reasons why companies choose IaaS is the ability to convert capital expenditures into operating expenses. IaaS offers storage, computing and networking solutions without the need to purchase and manage large private data centers, which consume a lot of energy and space.
For this reason, an Infrastructure as a Service solution is an ideal solution for those who have:
- Una rapid business growth that exceeds the capacity of the existing infrastructure;
- Sudden peaks in demand for infrastructure services;
- Inefficient use of resources of the existing infrastructure;
- Management of large volumes of data that overload on-premise datastores;
- Slow response times of on-premise applications;
- Performance Limits applications due to capacity restrictions;
- Long cycles of replacement or upgrading of the hardware.
What are the advantages of IaaS?
In the cases listed above, in fact, an IaaS guarantees:
- Scalability and Flexibility
An IaaS allows you to scale resources as needed. In periods of high demand, resources can be increased rapidly and just as quickly reduced when demand falls;
- Cost Efficiency and more
With IaaS, companies pay only for the resources actually used, eliminating the costs associated with acquiring and maintaining hardware. This pay-as-you-go model allows for more precise and efficient IT budget management;
- Agility and Innovation
IaaS allows businesses to launch new products and services quickly. Thanks to the immediate availability of IT resources, businesses can experiment and innovate without delays related to configuring or procuring hardware.
What's the connection between IaaS and Cloud Native?
Every company needs an IT infrastructure, and for Cloud Native applications, IaaS becomes almost the obligatory choice. Cloud Native applications differ in architecture from traditional applications and require a pool of highly available and resilient resources.
In this article you can consult the different types of IaaS to meet Cloud Native needs. In fact, it may be:
- Public Cloud Hyperscaler such as Amazon Web Service, Azure, GCP;
- Private Cloud with Vmware;
- Public Cloud with CloudFire, through Openstack as a Service, in fact, the user can have a dynamic pool of resources that can be managed from an interface of resources on demand without limitations in integrations.
Many IaaS solutions in CloudFire, but not only
In CloudFire, Infrastructure as a Service is a set of solutions that includes several within it. Over time we are then studying and implementing additional products, to date it includes:
- Openstack as a Service through which you get the best cloud resources on demand through an infrastructure based on Openstack;
- S3 Scalable Object Storage with which you store your data in a scalable, secure and S3 compatible Ceph Based space;
- Bare Metal as a Service thanks to which you deploy powerful and dedicated servers in certified and secure datacenters in a few minutes;
- vSphere as a Service useful for combining the power of dedicated IaaS with VMware technology.
However, speaking then of IaaS, it is logical to also name SaaS and PaaS. In fact, there is not only the concept of Infrastructure as a Service, always in the Cloud Computing field it is important to distinguish between IaaS, PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service). While IaaS provides the virtual infrastructure, PaaS offers a complete development environment and SaaS distributes software over the internet.
In CloudFire, in addition to IaaS solutions, you will find:
- SaaS such as Backup as a Service, Unified Communication, Collaboration, Network as a Service, this allows you to access software and solutions without worrying about installations and updates
- PaaS such as our Internal Developer Platform that allows you to create an operational and performing self-service cloud environment for your collaborators.
If you would like to learn more with us what we mean by Infrastructure as a Service write to us here, or subscribe to Cortex!
