IaaS – what is it ?

May 3rd 2010 in CIO, cloud computing, outsource, technical

IaaS is an acronym for Infrastructure as a Service.

IaaS is an outsourced service offering in which a service provider hosts the base infrastructure and storage. Using these base infrastructure services, you can install the servers and services you need to run for your business although many providers will also provide this as a service.

Typically, the infrastructure will be delivered using virtual infrastructure which allows the service provider to better utilise hardware and hence offer the service at a lower cost than the traditional ‘host your own servers’ method.

IaaS services are usually accessed by the Internet or in some cases, by a private network.

What is the relationship between Cloud Computing and IaaS ?

Cloud Computing is a generic term that describes shared computing resources that can be dynamically scaled according to business requirements, faster than traditional computing environments.

IaaS is one delivery model of Cloud Computing. Refer to these articles for information about other delivery models: DaaS (Desktop as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service).

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Service delivery options

SaaS is offered through a number of different delivery options, such as Public cloud service, Private cloud, Hybrid cloud and managed cloud.

Refer to this article about Cloud Computing for further information.

What are the benefits of using IaaS ?

The up-front cost of introducing infrastructure is reduced, as the usual capital investment in hardware is replaced by a monthly ‘usage’ charge. The economic benefit of this should be verified to account for the services used and data volumes.
The cost of using the system (should be) less than the cost of hosting it yourself, when taking into account all the infrastructure costs such as hardware, software, backups, contingency provision and ongoing upgrades and maintenance.
Improves the agility of IT services, by being able to quickly obtain additional computing processing power and storage capacity. Many companies use IaaS as a testing environment where they need additional computing facilities for a short period of time.

What should I be aware of before using IaaS ?

Perform due-diligence on the supplier to ensure they are financially stable and have security and operational policies and procedures in place that are at least as comprehensive as those of your company.
Ensure you know where your data is. Many companies have a legal and regulatory obligation to know exactly where their data is.
Ensure you know who has access to your data at the service provider. You don’t want a disgruntled employee of the service provider taking a copy of your client database.
Ensure the data is encrypted on the service provider’s servers and on their backups.
Ensure the backed-up data is available for you to recover from as a result of an issue caused by your company. For example, many Cloud service providers perform regular backups, but will only restore if they suffer a problem. This won’t help you if you accidentally delete some of your data.
Ensure you understand the legal and regulatory requirements that you must comply with. For example the retention of month-end backups.
Ensure the infrastructure is configurable to meet your needs ‘out of the box’. For example, make sure you have the ability to restart servers and install software as you need to.
Understand how upgrades to the operating system software are applied and whether you have the opportunity to test your business systems on the new version before it is implemented for live use.
Understand how the system and its security will be integrated into your company’s existing infrastructure.
Delivery of the service is totally dependent on the performance and stability of the network. Make sure that both the company premises and the hosting provider have sufficient capacity and diverse routing to cope in the event of a failure.

What is the financial impact of using IaaS ?

Financially, the significant difference of Cloud Computing to the traditional model of owning your own servers, is that Cloud Computing is typically charged on a pay-as-you-use operating expense instead of a capital investment. This may suit many companies, as they can very quickly get access to significant computing power and capacity for no capital outlay. However, tight control needs to be kept on the use of the services, as it is easy to expand and hence increase ongoing charges.

Charges are typically based on the number of virtualised servers, the amount of network traffic and the data storage space used.

Watch-out for the network traffic charge. Often this is capped at an amount per month. If your Cloud Computing has public access, the network usage could be out of your control and you could end-up paying an excess network usage cost.

Examples of IaaS

An example of IaaS is the OneSource service from Jersey Telecom and Virtustream.

Do I still need an IT capability in-house ?

The quick answer is ‘yes’. With an IaaS service, there is still the need to support all the IT infrastructure, the main change is that the server-side hardware is hosted elsewhere, so activities such as hardware maintenance and backups transfer to the service provider.

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