IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service): what it means and what it consists of

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service): what it means and what it consists of

There are many different ways to use a service these days, and more and more companies are adapting their offerings to better meet the needs of their customers. But what exactly are we talking about? We explain in this article.

What does IaaS mean?

The term IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) refers to a particular category of Cloud Computing services that makes resources, storage space and connections available to the user against payment of a subscription fee.
Because of this characteristic, the IaaS service is commonly associated with serverless computing.
However, IaaS is only one of the three main cloud services, of which SaaS (Software as a Service) and PaaS (Platform as a Service) are also part.

What does the IaaS cloud computing service consist of?

With IaaS, a cloud computing service provider makes its infrastructure available to the customer, and the latter only has to buy, install, configure and manage the resulting software and operating systems.
With this mechanism, a company frees itself from managing and maintaining its own infrastructure and physical servers (which is quite costly in economic terms). All resources are offered on demand (via the cloud) and can be constantly adapted and improved to meet new business needs.

An IaaS service is therefore an innovative way of using servicesi and content in which users have full management of applications, software, data and all other cloud computing services. This eliminates the need for on-premise solutions, which are physically present in a company and require constant maintenance, care and updating.

So what are the benefits of IaaS? Taking advantage of an IaaS service means reducing costs related to data centre maintenance, saving money (and time) for the purchase of the necessary hardware machines, but above all always having access to information and data in real time.

Even from a risk management perspective, using cloud services is always a responsible choice to avoid situations of total loss of important data, projects and documents.
This solution adapts perfectly to the size of a company, and the user always has full management of the chosen services, adjusting them over time according to the current workflow, and the consumer cost to be incurred.

What are IaaS PaaS SaaS?

As we have already mentioned, IaaS is but one of the three cloud service models, together with Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). With Platform as a Service (PaaS), the hardware and the software
platform are provided and managed by an external service provider, while the user remains responsible for managing the application and the data. This service thus offers a platform where users can develop, run, manage and distribute applications without having to build an infrastructure to manage these processes.

Software as a Service (SaaS), on the other hand, is a service that provides users with a web application managed by the service provider, which in most cases is made available through a web browser. The user connects to the app through an API, so that they can manage software updates, bug fixes and many other general maintenance tasks.

With this type of service, there is no longer any need to install applications on each individual user's computer.
Compared to the other two, IaaS is the most flexible and comprehensive cloud as a service model, as it allows resources to be adapted, updated and added according to user needs.