What is IAAS and how can it benefit your business?

Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) has been one of the biggest shifts to come from digitalisation. This model of doing business has a lot of advantages, as it allows access via subscription to hosted infrastructure and helps to reduce up front costs. It’s one of the simplest ways to introduce greater efficiency into any business and create more options when it comes to agility and scaling.

What is IAAS?

It is a model that essentially allows businesses to rent servers for cloud computing and storage with resources being provided over the internet. It is part of a group of three computing services that can be accessed in this way, the other two being Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).  The public and/or private cloud is used to host infrastructure and this is provided on an on demand basis and managed and maintained by the provider. IAAS removes the need to have an on-premise data centre and everything that comes with that, from networking hardware to storage. Most IAAS providers will also offer a range of added extras, such as security features or monitoring.

How can IAAS benefit your business?

  • Enabling your business to streamline and focus on core issues.  Working with IAAS creates more space for your team to focus on core issues and finding ways to add value to the business, rather than being involved with essential infrastructure design and maintenance.
  • More flexibility and ability to mitigate risk. Working with IAAS provides much more flexibility when it comes to increasing or reducing available resources according to current need. When workloads shift it’s simple to recalibrate costs and resources to make sure they match demand.
  • A pay-as-you-go model. Your business will only need to cover the cost of the resources that are used, which can minimise costs and help to better manage risk. There are also many ways that it makes sense financially to opt for this approach, as opposed to owning your own infrastructure, including reducing the need for a large initial upfront spend and minimising what is spent on management and maintenance.
  • A faster process. Provisioning happens quickly with IAAS, whether you’re looking at sizable resources or just a small amount. This provides for a more versatile approach where ideas and vision can be tested and brought to market in a much shorter space of time.
  • Servers that are close to end users. If geographic closeness to your end users is key, IAAS can provide this.
  • Optimising security and performance. Any IAAS provider will supply a Service Level Agreement (SLA) that provides guarantees on key elements, such as uptime, which can be a significant factor in boosting performance. Many offer security standards over and above what an individual organisation would be likely to employ.
  • Effective disaster planning. When infrastructure is hosted off-site there is more scope to recover quickly in the event of an outage or disaster.

IAAS provides a simple and fast way to optimise how your business is run and what the future might look like.