What Is Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)?

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) has only been around for a few years. However, in 2019, it was already worth almost $39 billion annually!

The more that you understand about IaaS cloud computing benefits, the more you will understand why these services are so popular. When people talk about the benefits of cloud computing, they often point to IaaS examples to make their case.

So what exactly is IaaS, and how can it benefit your business? Read on to learn all about the most important things to understand about infrastructure as a service!

What is Infrastructure as a Service in cloud computing?

Infrastructure as a service or IaaS is a type of cloud computing service that offers essential compute, storage, and networking resources.

People have been talking more and more about the advantages of cloud computing. Once you look a little bit more into the benefits of cloud computing, you find out that a huge chunk of it is all about infrastructure as a service.

Infrastructure as a service refers to how you can rent the use of distant servers to help you store data or run complicated computations. Infrastructure as a service companies own huge quantities of servers which they then rent out to people. That is the difference between using your own infrastructure versus using cloud computing.

Instead of running calculations on your own private hardware, you can send requests to the cloud. This comes with a variety of benefits.

Infrastructure as a Service benefits

You can think of infrastructure as a service as a little bit like taxis or hotels. It would be extremely inefficient for people to try to own transportation or housing everywhere they went. The vast majority of the time, their transportation or housing would go unused, and it would provide no value.

It is much more efficient for companies to own huge quantities of transportation or housing. That way, they can provide it to people only when those people need it. The same basic principle applies to computing power and storage space.

Sometimes you might need huge quantities of computing power or storage space, but most of the time, you do not. It would be extremely inefficient for you to have to own all of the servers necessary to manage your occasional increased need for computing power.

It is much more efficient to rent from an infrastructure as a service company so that you only have to pay for your computing or storage when you actually need it.

Protect your data better

On top of simple efficiency, infrastructure as a service companies can provide you with superior service. After all, they only have to focus on one thing. That means providing excellent storage and computing service.

As a result, they can also help you manage and protect your data. You can always figure out how to do this yourself with your own in-house information technology team. However, these services come along with using an infrastructure as a service company, which is often more efficient.

Occasionally, you might suffer the loss of some data. This is true no matter where you store it. However, infrastructure as a service companies are accustomed to this problem and have plenty of countermeasures in place to manage it.

Using an infrastructure as a service company means that you will have greater access to recovery tools in case you lose some of your data. They can also help set you up with backup copies of your data in case you lose things.

Efficiently scale up and down

If you are lucky, your company will get bigger and start to need more resources. Among other things, that might mean getting more computing and storage space. However, it can almost often be extremely difficult to know exactly how much more computing power and storage you need.

If you buy too much, then you increase your expenses unnecessarily. If you buy too little, then you slow down your business growth.

Using infrastructure as a service means that you can temporarily buy more computing power and storage. And if it turns out that you did not buy enough, you can simply ask for more and receive near instantaneous access.

On the other hand, sometimes, a business starts to scale down. In such cases, they can usually not recover the money they spent on hardware and infrastructure. But working with an infrastructure as a service company means that you can simply buy less access.

Using infrastructure as a service allows you to increase and decrease your computing and storage needs efficiently.

Outsource information technology needs

Businesses are made of people. People have different skills and contribute to a business by emphasizing their strengths. In the modern day, many companies feel the need to hire information technology experts and hope that they can hire competent people so that the other members of the company can focus on their own areas of expertise.

However, it is much more reliable to simply use IAAS vendors. That way, you know that you will have competent information technology experts taking care of your technical needs. Then everybody else in your company can focus on their jobs, knowing that their technical needs will be taken care of.

Understand IAAS examples

We hope learning a little bit about IAAS has been helpful for you. IAAS infrastructure as a service has already revolutionized parts of the business world. Using IAAS in cloud computing practices can increase efficiency and safety. That may be especially important as cyber crime continues to become more common.

Of course, every situation is different. Learning more about infrastructure as a service can help you understand whether or not you can benefit from it.

Protecting Azure IaaS with Datto Backup for Azure

Workloads running in Azure are not automatically backed up. Ensure that you're protected from single-cloud risk and downtime scenarios, such as ransomware and outages, with Datto Backup for Microsoft Azure. Provide true business continuity for your clients with multi-cloud protection, hourly replication to the secure Datto Cloud, and no-cost egress.

To learn more about protecting Microsoft Azure IAAS, you can start by checking out our guide on how to set up best cloud practices!