Overview
On the spectrum of cloud computing, infrastructure as a service—or IaaS—is the closest you can get to full ownership of your IT resources. And, though IaaS gives you a great amount of control, it wouldn’t be a cloud computing service if it didn’t take some of the load off of your IT staff while providing high flexibility and scalability.
What is IaaS?
Out of all the as-a-service options, IaaS allows for the greatest amount of control, security, and customization. A virtual recreation of traditional, physical IT services, IaaS provides servers, hard drives, networking, and storage, which your service provider maintains and manages. The provider may also include infrastructure services such as security, backup, and recovery. Your IT staff is responsible for managing and maintaining applications, operating systems, middleware, and data.
IaaS is usually delivered via a dashboard or API, and payment is based on usage and how much virtual machine space your organization needs. And, like with other as-a-service models, you can scale up or down at any time.
Why does IaaS matter?
The tradeoff for the extra IT work is security. Since the infrastructure is usually provided via a dashboard or API, instead of the web like SaaS and Paas, IaaS is considered the most secure as-a-service. Plus, IaaS servers are often private, and you can access them directly, as-needed.
IaaS is also exceptionally flexible, scalable, and customizable. It can be the perfect cloud computing solution for businesses that need great security while meeting high performance demands.
What’s the difference between IaaS and other as-a-service models?
With IaaS, your organization is responsible for managing much more than you would be with SaaS or PaaS. The extra work means more control, security, and flexibility. Instead of purchasing a predetermined platform, like with PaaS, you can design your infrastructure to suit your business needs.
The only cloud computing model to include hardware, IaaS can be a great option for businesses that need or may need the security and accessibility of hardware. If you need less control and no hardware, you may consider PaaS, depending on your business needs.
How IaaS helps you compete
IaaS is highly scalable and flexible, so you can meet your organization’s needs, whatever they are, whenever. In a time of immense change, not having to commit to hardware, being able to scale as needed, but have security and high performance is a huge asset. And though your staff has more responsibilities, IaaS still helps your business save money. You can purchase resources as-needed, instead of having to invest expensive hardware up front, that may not work for you long term. It’s also easy to deploy a data analytics platform on top IaaS architectures so you can quickly and easily integrate essential data analytics into your business.
Find long term business success
If you want to unlock unlimited business value, putting data at the center of your business is key. With Teradata, you can use your preferred IaaS architecture with our data analytics platform layered on top. We manage the as-a-service platform for you. Or, if you want more control, our software-only offering allows you to provision and manage the environment yourself. While not all businesses will need the control and security of IaaS, an as-a-service offering is a great way to develop a unified approach and integrate data analytics into your business, so you can make data-driven decisions and help your business be future-ready.