Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
The infrastructure represents the lowest layer in cloud computing. Simply put: The user rents IT infrastructure and maintenance.
Here, IaaS describes a business model in which no complete solution (hardware and software application) is offered, but only the hardware necessary to implement certain applications. This is located in data centers and is also supported there. The cloud users are given access to virtualized components for data processing, data transport and data storage and can thus use and install any application programs and operating systems.
IaaS is often chosen simply because of the cost savings associated with this model: Companies look for and select modularly what they need, keeping infrastructure costs low. This also means that companies do not have to invest money in setting up servers, hardware and storage infrastructure. IaaS is clearly the model that is becoming increasingly popular with large companies.
What speaks for IaaS?
IaaS also offers scalability and flexibility: the physical hardware and servers reside with the provider and can be added or removed by organizations as needed. This is especially useful when organizations are experiencing peaks in usage or when they have workloads that vary with the seasons.