Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is one of the four key layers of cloud computing, alongside Software as a service (SaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS), and serverless. Each of these four models addresses different principles and delivers various levels of monitoring, security, and flexibility. However, a swath of companies, from start-ups to big enterprises, favor IaaS due to its scalability and convenience.

In the old days, floppy discs, CD-ROMs, and later, USB sticks, were assiduous presences in the workplace. But once the Cloud emerged as THE alternative, the way organisations store and protect their data has completely changed. In fact, the cloud’s popularity amongst businesses has rocketed in the last years, fueled by the rapid transition to remote/hybrid work.

As opposed to user-owned storing devices, renting resources in the cloud – and particularly IaaS -became a trend for many organisations. Let us look in more detail at the advantages of Infrastructure as a Service, a model that is becoming a commodity in the corporate universe.

What is Infrastructure as a service?

Infrastructure as a service is a type of cloud computing model where infrastructure or hardware is provisioned and fully managed by an external provider in a virtual environment instead of in a traditional on-premises data center. Rather than purchasing computing resources, renting them in the cloud became extremely popular for agile businesses.

Just like an outsourced service, we might think of IaaS as hardware-as-a-service that can include anything from virtual servers, storage, or network infrastructure. With most of the providers, clients only pay for the components that they actually need and use.

Today, the top five vendors of IaaS are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Alibaba Cloud, and IBM Cloud.

In the modern business scenario, IaaS is widely used for:

– Backing up, storing, and recovering data.

– Data warehousing.

– Application development and testing.

– Big data analysis.

– Hosting websites and web applications with high computing performance.

– Several organisations use IaaS to support hybrid cloud deployments.

What are the main advantages of IaaS?

Now that we have examined this data storage model, let us dive into some of its advantages. Some of the IaaS key benefits include:

Cost-effectiveness: By adopting IaaS, businesses do not have to worry about buying, setting up, maintaining, and upgrading the cost of expensive hardware and networking equipment. The pay-as-you-go pricing system that characterizes IaaS is based on actual resource consumption which saves businesses money since they will not pay for the capacity they do not require. IaaS also makes an intelligent option for organisations that need to test new projects or host temporary ones.

Scalability: Your data infrastructure must keep up with business growth. The ability to respond to changes and take advantage of opportunities makes IaaS particularly popular with growing companies. Therefore, flexibility is one of the greatest advantages of IaaS as it allows companies to seamlessly scale up and down their IT solutions.

Focus on business growth: IaaS not only delivers superior flexibility and efficiency but also saves in-house departments a great deal of effort and time. Say goodbye to unpleasant tasks like installing and maintaining the components since this becomes the provider’s responsibility. Compared to conventional in-house storage systems, Infrastructure as a service allows companies to use this time to concentrate on important core activities.

Superior security: Security is another advantage of Infrastructure as a Service. Reliable IaaS providers implement the strictest protection and security measures compared to hosting your infrastructure onsite.