What Is Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)? Definition, Examples, Types, and Best Practices

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is defined as a cloud-based computing service that provides leased servers to enterprises for remote computing and storage applications. Users leverage IaaS to run software or store data on remote infrastructure without having to directly pay for the operating and maintenance costs of the said infrastructure. Instead, clients need to pay a recurring subscription fee usually based on the number of server resources used. This article explains the basics of IaaS and shares some implementation best practices for 2021.

What Is Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)?
Key Components of IaaS
Types and Examples of IaaS
Top 8 Best Practices for Implementing IaaS in 2021

What Is Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)?

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is a cloud-based computing service that provides leased servers to enterprises for remote computing and storage applications. Users leverage IaaS to run software or store data on remote infrastructure without having to directly pay for the operating and maintenance costs of the said infrastructure. Instead, clients need to pay a recurring subscription fee usually based on the number of server resources used.

How IaaS Works

With IaaS, organizations no longer need to procure, set up, operate, and manage their own data centers. Also, as with other â€˜as a service’ solutions, infrastructure as a service can be scaled up (or down) automatically, depending on client requirements. Additionally, most leading IaaS vendors provide a robust service level agreement (SLA) for uptime and performance. Further, IaaS gives client companies access to servers closer to their end customers, thus addressing both technical and regulatory requirements with ease.

Most enterprises find infrastructure as a service more efficient and economical than buying and taking care of their own servers. One reason for this is obsolescence. As technology progresses, infrastructure becomes outdated quickly, especially for applications such as testing and development of the latest software. However, IaaS providers constantly upgrade their infrastructure to suit client requirements, making access to the latest infrastructure easier and cheaper.

Also Read: What Is Cloud Data Protection? Definition, Importance, and Best Practices

Key Components of IaaS

IaaS solutions are composed of several different components. IaaS vendors constantly upgrade their components to enhance durability & performance and reduce redundancy & costs for clients. Here are some key components of IaaS.

SaaS vs. PaaS vs. IaaS

1. Geography

Even though the end users of infrastructure as a service generally do not actually see the infrastructure that they buy and use, it does physically exist somewhere. These computers, servers, and other components are present in a region or geography of the vendor’s choice.

The region where the technology and human resources powering IaaS entities is located can impact latency, customer service, disaster recovery, and the regulatory standing of client organizations, among other factors. The geography is usually conveyed by the vendor on its website. However, some vendors may require prospective clients to reach out to the sales or support team for clarification.

While large public cloud services use multiple geographical regions that are a great distance apart from each other as well as from the client, smaller private cloud vendors may limit their geographical presence to a single administrative region. Generally speaking, the farther apart the vendor and end user, the higher the latency and isolation.

2. Virtual disks

Virtual disks are permanent, size-configurable, block-level storage media. These disks are designed to mount onto running virtual machines and have the capacity for random input/output (I/O). While one virtual disk can be mounted onto one virtual machine at a given time, it can also be mounted onto numerous machines over the course of its lifetime.

A virtual disk will continue to exist in an unmounted state after the virtual machine that it was mounted on shuts down. Even though they are â€˜virtual’ in nature, these disks may be subject to hardware failure or can be affected by disasters. As such, IaaS vendors create contingency plans for virtual disk failures within their component architecture.

Also Read: Private vs. Public Cloud: 10 Key Comparisons

3. Virtual machines (VMs)

Virtual machines are basic computing units in an infrastructure as a service system. These machines are available in two main variants: persistent and non-persistent.

Persistent virtual machines are backed by a permanent medium of storage, such as a virtual disk. As discussed above, these disks will continue to exist even after the virtual machine has stopped working and can be remounted onto the same or another virtual machine. Using a virtual disk or similar storage medium, persistent virtual machines can be started again at the same state that they were in at the time of stoppage of operations.
On the other hand, non-persistent virtual machines will not persist in any form after stopping the operations. All modifications made on the machine while it was in an active state will be lost once it switches to an â€˜off’ state. If persistence is required, an archival storage, virtual disk, or other appropriate storage mediums will need to be deployed before the termination of machine operations.

As with virtual disks, virtual machines are susceptible to disasters as well as hardware failures. Therefore, IaaS providers need to ensure robust backup and continuity planning for their virtual machines.

4. Archival storage

Archival storage is a component of IaaS systems designed to offer permanent and long-term storage. Archival storage enables the system to store and retrieve individual â€˜binary large objects’ (BLOBs). However, this storage is not meant for random I/O within BLOBs.

It is not necessary to mount archival storage onto a virtual machine. This storage can be accessed by numerous virtual machines at once. Archival storage is durable; however, it may not always be available for use.

5. Failure-insulated zone

Being a subdivision of geography, failure-insulated zones are small-scale regions that are preemptively isolated to contain localized failures. Unlike geographical regions that isolate large-scale disasters and failures (such as explosions and earthquakes) spread across large areas, failure-insulated zones isolate IaaS systems from failure on a smaller scale (machine or power supply failure).

Simply put, these zones are further divisions of geographical regions. And just like geographical regions, the isolation levels of these zones will always vary. Similar to geographical regions, higher levels of isolation are always better in the case of failure-insulated zones.

Also Read: What Is Cloud Encryption? Definition, Importance, Methods, and Best Practices

Types and Examples of IaaS

IaaS can be divided into multiple types, such as:

1. Production IaaS

Arguably the â€˜main’ type of infrastructure as a service, production IaaS environments are designed to provide enterprises with the capability of running live systems and applications from the cloud. This type of IaaS can enhance the performance of operating systems, application servers, and databases.

Companies leverage production IaaS to access secure, turnkey environments swiftly. Other benefits of production IaaS include lowered costs, minimized cycle times, hassle-free compliance with regulations, and enhanced output quality.

2. Test and development IaaS

Another major type of infrastructure as a service is the test and development IaaS environment. Often, developers require a specific technical infrastructure only for a short period to test the live viability of their workloads.

The attractive pay-as-you-go subscription models offered by IaaS vendors mean that this type of IaaS is an economical solution for application development and testing. Test and development type IaaS allows for testing at any scale as and when required, without significant investments.

Also Read: What Is Software as a Service (SaaS)? Definition, Examples, Types, and Trends

3. Disaster recovery IaaS

IaaS solutions hosted in a disaster recovery environment feature redundant infrastructure that protects user data in case of system failure or disasters. This type of IaaS can be hosted either on a private or public cloud.

Hosted disaster recovery IaaS is usually a scaled-down iteration of the complete production IaaS. It is situated in a secured data center that is distinct from the main IaaS iteration and can go from â€˜standby’ to â€˜available’ at short notice.

The benefit of having this type of offsite IaaS on standby is that it allows organizations to avoid downtime in most scenarios. It is also more economical than operating two infrastructures that are identical to each other.

4. Replication IaaS

A replication type IaaS environment is designed to efficiently process the workloads required for business continuity, high availability replication, and disaster recovery. Most IaaS providers feature replication environments that support all major operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and IBM.

Also Read: What Is Platform as a Service (PaaS)? Definition, Examples, Components, and Best Practices

How are these types of IaaS put to use? Here are five examples of IaaS use cases:

Effortless migration: Adopting IaaS is one of the quickest and most economical methods of migrating workloads or applications to the cloud. Using IaaS, companies can enhance the scale, performance, and security of operations whenever required, without touching their on-premise architecture. Migrating to IaaS is also an easy way to reduce the budget required for running applications and workloads.
Easy development and testing: By using IaaS, an organization can set up, scale up/down, or dismantle development and testing environments within a matter of a few hours and without incurring unmanageable costs. This allows client companies to bring new ideas, applications, and products to the market at greater speed.
Robust redundancy measures: Traditionally, organizations require great capital expenditure for storage management. This CAPEX includes costly hardware & software and payroll costs for experts in data management and legal & regulatory compliance. However, IaaS removes all the complications associated with redundancy. At the same time, it helps client companies handle sudden spikes in demand and expanding storage needs with ease. With IaaS, planning and managing backup and recovery systems are simplified.
Simplified online applications: With IaaS, organizations can procure all the infrastructure they need to run, test, develop, and support the latest web applications. IaaS vendors provide pay-as-you-go options for advanced storage, networking, and applications & web server solutions. Enterprises leverage IaaS to quickly deploy web applications and easily scale up/down related infrastructure, especially when demand for bandwidth is unpredictable.
Cutting-edge performance: Many enterprises, regardless of their size, require high-performance processing power for computing data in applications such as large-scale simulations, predictions, modeling, and evaluations. IaaS helps such organizations access the computer grids, supercomputers, or computer clusters they need in an affordable and user-friendly way. With IaaS, solving complicated problems that involve millions of calculations or variables becomes much simpler.

Also Read: Cloud vs. On-premise Comparison: Key Differences and Similarities

Top 8 Best Practices for Implementing IaaS in 2021

Adopting cloud-based infrastructure can be a paradigm shift for some organizations. Here are eight best practices for implementing infrastructure as a service in 2021 to create a well-rounded cloud strategy.

IaaS Implementation Best Practices

1. Justify implementation of IaaS

Before starting, organizations need to justify the adoption of cloud-based infrastructure. One of the main reasons for the heightened adoption of IaaS solutions in 2021 is the prevalence of remote work globally, which necessitates higher agility, greater efficiency, and remote deployment capabilities. Minimized costs and no need for maintenance are other good reasons to shift from on-premise infrastructure to IaaS.

Regardless of the reasons for choosing IaaS, companies must keep them in perspective at each stage of the adoption process. This helps management teams keep the IaaS implementation project on track and reevaluate business choices whenever required.

Some organizations may begin IaaS adoption without a proper use case simply because the competition is doing so. This should be avoidedâ€”IaaS adoption should only be based on well-thought-out business reasons.

2. Maintain open & transparent communication

Throughout the IaaS selection, adoption, and implementation process, it is critical to establish and maintain transparent, detailed, and continuous communication with all stakeholders. Relevant teams must be kept up to date with the information they need, including planned activities such as migration timelines and milestones.

Having a plan to enhance â€˜buy-in’ for IaaS solutions can help make the implementation process more efficient. To achieve this, the IT team and other stakeholders need to be kept in the loop in terms of how IaaS can bring them benefits at individual, team, and department levels. Examples include user-friendliness, time-saving, and greater agility.

Also Read: What Is Anything/Everything as a Service (XaaS)? Definition and Key Trends

3. Develop & test the strategy

Once the reason for moving to the cloud has been clearly defined, and all stakeholders have been apprised of the situation, the next step is to map out the strategy for IaaS implementation.

At this stage, management teams must figure out whether applications can be moved onto the cloud as they are or whether the need for rework exists. Another aspect of the migration strategy is gauging how moving a particular workload or application onto the cloud will impact other aspects of business operations. Minimizing disruption is yet another element that needs to be looked into. Finally, stakeholders need to understand whether their organization will benefit the most from a private cloud, public cloud, multicloud, on-premise setup, or a hybrid environment.

Once the strategy is developed, testing it is a good idea. This can be done by conducting a pilot study to ensure the migration and ensuing systems & processes are working as expected. By conducting a comprehensive pilot run, organizations can â€˜fail small’, thereby creating an opportunity to fix issues at the get-go instead of diving into a full-scale migration mess. It is always wise to plan for things that could go wrong.

4. Plan a long-term budget

Once a detailed plan is developed, and if the pilot test results are favorable, it is best if all stakeholders come together to forecast IaaS-related costs that will be incurred over the long term. Getting an accurate estimate of future costs is arguably more important than understanding present expenses.

Managers need to understand the costs associated with implementing, managing, controlling, and upgrading IaaS in complete detail. At the same time, they must factor in and compare all costs associated with their existing infrastructure.

Generally speaking, adopting cloud solutions should not be more expensive than continuing with on-premise infrastructure, especially over the long term. However, some situations that may lead to unexpected costs include inaccurate forecasting leading to the erroneous purchase of on-demand bandwidth, imprecise autoscaling, and turning on services temporarily but failing to turn them off later.

Also Read: What Is Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)? Definition, Components, Providers, and Trends

5. Ensure comprehensive backups

Even though IaaS vendors generally provide meticulous migration without data loss, the risk always exists. Therefore, it is best to ensure that all data, or at least all critical data, is backed up securely before the commencement of migration procedures. Further, it would be helpful to ensure that teams can continue to meet their recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs) to prevent operations from being disrupted during migration.

6. Test & secure everything

Robust cybersecurity measures can mean the difference between becoming the victim of a data leak or other cyberattacks or and having a secure, highly impenetrable IaaS environment. Stakeholders need to fully understand the security measures that the chosen IaaS provider will implement at all levelsâ€”vendor, client, and end user. At the same time, the client company must understand its own cybersecurity responsibilities as well.

Security during the migration process itself should be a consideration as well. Both the vendor and the client company must work together to ensure that no system or data is left vulnerable, even for a few moments.

Finally, right after the completion of migration, performance testing must be conducted at all levels to ensure the success of the process. Users should be able to access all systems and data, integrations should work as expected, and security should be robust.

Also Read: What Is Container Security? Definition, Components, Best Practices, and Software

7. Ensure end-to-end compliance

Corporate organizations worldwide have grown to accept, adopt, and even prefer an infrastructure as a service environment in 2021. As a result, lawmakers and regulatory bodies have implemented increasingly stringent laws, regulations, and guidelines. The goal of such legislation is often to protect consumer rights and corporate security, among other reasons.

Companies that are subject to any of these regulations related to cloud storage and use cannot treat them as an afterthought when adopting and implementing IaaS solutions. Businesses should consider regulations including Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR), and Payment Card Industry (PCI) laws.

8. Leverage expertise

Even though cloud-based solutions are extremely popular in 2021, not everybody is a cloud expert. Software developers, IT experts, or even chief information officers need to leverage the expertise of vendors or specialized consultants to completely understand all the elements of IaaS. It is important to understand the finer points of cloud migration from a party with sufficient knowledge, skill, and hands-on experience, before completing the IaaS adoption process.

Working with an IaaS expert, at least during and a few weeks after the migration, will help in-house resources gain some cloud expertise. This, in turn, will help employees of the client company choose the right IaaS-related tools, products, and cybersecurity solutions in the future. Keeping a cloud expert on-call can help management teams enhance user adoption, control costs, and get high returns on their IaaS investment.

Also Read: Top 10 Cloud Data Protection Companies in 2021

Takeaway

The decision to adopt IaaS can lead to numerous benefits for any enterprise. However, just like most other tech projects, it needs to be done correctly to be successful. Shifting to IaaS entails many complicated processes that must be managed correctly to avoid operational disruptions, data loss, strange costing models, frustrated users, or a system that doesn’t fit the client company’s use case. Make well-thought-out choices, reach out to experts when you need help, and ensure transparent communication. More often than not, that’s all it takes for successful IaaS implementation.

Did this article help you gain a comprehensive understanding of infrastructure as a service? We would love to hear from youâ€”let us know on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window !Â

MORE ON CLOUD