What is Infrastructure as a service? | IaaS – explained

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Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is one of the three types of cloud services. The other two are Platform as a service (PaaS) and Software as a service (SaaS). IaaS provides the very best, when it comes to control of the software you have on your server. Unlike platform as a service (PaaS) where the cloud provider is already installed OS and some Development and Analytics tools, which is limited by their License agreement and possible by their programmers (if the tools are proprietary) in IaaS you have the full freedom to install anything you want and take advantage of “Bring-your-own license” software. In IaaS the cloud provider (like MaxCloudON)  is responsible for physically maintaining the servers, networking and firewall security and ensuring that the data center has enough cooling, power and backup power in case of emergency

Moving to the IaaS cloud will help you lower the cost compared to maintenance of on-premises data centers and eliminate the huge Up-front investment of buying the servers. It also gives you the ability to scale up or down the servers you rent based on your current demands. And by the fact that the physical servers are in the data center and maintained by engineers who are closely specialized, you gain the advantage of years of experience.

The difference between the 3 types of hosting can be explained with this diagram:

Diagram showing different kind of Cloud infrastructure.

Possible use cases of IaaS

Full migration

This is the case where one company moves all of its workload to the cloud. In this case scenario you gain the advantage of the security and flexibility of the cloud. Plus it gives you the advantage of extending the life of your workstations and already existing hardware, since most of the workloads will be handled by the servers, the devices your employees need, only have to handle the stream to the Virtual environment.

Test and development

In this case your team can run a newly developed app in a lot of different environments fast and securely. You just virtualize as many different test environments as you need and when you are finished you just dismantle them. This will help you test, develop and put to the market any product faster.

High-performance computing

High-performance computing on supercomputers or computer clusters help run simulations and other problems with a lot of variables. For example financial market modeling, climate and weather prediction, earthquake simulations.

Web apps

IaaS provides you with all of the infrastructure needed by a web app . All of the storage, network resources, web and application servers are already in place. So your company can easily scale up or down if needed. 

Storage, backup, and recovery

In this scenario the company chooses to have its data stored and backed up in a location other than their own, because in case of disaster it can easily be recovered without any data loss. In this scenario the company also saves money on staff needed to manage the complex task of data storage.

Advantages of IaaS

Reduces budget and optimizes cost

IaaS removes the expenses associated with buying, configuring and managing physical datacenter. By using the pay-as-you-go method you only pay for the cost of the servers you need right now. And by eliminating the need for your IT department to maintain the servers they can focus on helping your employees with their core tasks.

Easy to scale

With IaaS  you can easily scale up or down to meet any spikes in demands. This way your employees and your clients will have a better experience and better focus on their work.

Faster deployment and expansion

With IaaS, when the decision on expanding or deploying a new app is made the necessary infrastructure is already in place. You don’t have to wait days or weeks for the new servers. This way you can deliver new features or new products to the customers faster.

Better Security

With proper service agreement, your provider can offer better security than you would normally have on-premises.  

Increased productivity and stability

With guaranteed uptime (we at MaxCloudON have 99.5% uptime ) and 24/7 support , you can be sure that your clients and employees will have constant access to the program, app or the resource they need in the moment they need it. That way they will not break their workflow or train of thought and this will increase their productivity.

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