Infrastructure as a Service

Infrastructure as a Service means “renting” virtual server space, network connections, bandwidth, IP addresses and load balancers instead of investing in all the hardware and software yourself. Most IaaS providers offer their services on a pay as you go basis. IaaS is occasionally referred to as Hardware as a Service (HaaS).

IaaS providers offer their clients access to all exactly the server, storage and networking resources they need. Furthermore, you only pay for what you use. One of the biggest benefits of infrastructure as a service is it virtually eliminates worries about scaling up as your business grows. In fact, your per unit IT infrastructure costs typically go down as you scale up your IaaS usage.

Large SaaS, PaaS and IaaS providers like IBM, Amazon and others maintain huge datacenters with a multitude of servers and networks distributed at strategic locations across the globe. Clients are given access to the virtualized IT components in order to build their own IT platforms, and are charged based on their use of the resources.

Common business applications for IaaS include:

Enterprise infrastructure — to create internal business networks, such as private clouds and virtual local area networks, which use pooled server and networking resources and in which a business can store their data and run the apps they need to conduct their business.

Cloud hosting—to host websites on virtual servers provided by IaaS providers. A website hosted in the cloud enjoys the redundancy of a huge network of physical servers, as well as the on-demand scalability to handle even rapidly increasing demands on the website.

Virtual Data Centers (VDC)—to build a network of interconnected virtual servers to create enhanced cloud hosting capabilities, enterprise IT infrastructure or to integrate a variety of business operations within either a private or public cloud.