Consists of supply of computing infrastructure (typically a virtualization environment platform) as a service, leveraging major investments in technology and data centers to deliver IT as a service to customers.
Unlike traditional outsourcing models of resource providers, which require negotiation, in-depth analysis, long and complex contracts, IaaS is centered around a service model of infrastructure delivery that has a pre-standardized infrastructure and specifically optimized for client applications.
Thus, customers don’t need to deploy a data center within their companies, the service provides servers, processing power, storage capacity, network and other fundamental computing resources. In this service, client applications can be deployed and executed remotely maintaining the property and manage their applications, while the ISP infrastructure provider is responsible for hosting operations and infrastructure management.
Finally, there is no charge of administration or control of the underlying cloud infrastructure for the customer, but it has the possibility to choose the operating system, amount of storage and applications which will be deployed. It may also possibly have limited control of select networking components (e.g. host firewalls). Normally, the IaaS is billed monthly, customers are charged only for the resources used.
Main Components
a) computer hardware, generally defined as a grid for massive horizontal elasticity;
b) computer network, including routers, firewalls, load balancing, etc.;
c) Internet connectivity, often in OC 192 backbone;
d) Environment virtualization platform for running virtual machines specified by the customer;
e) Service Level Agreements;
f) Billing for Utility Computing;
Features
a) Resources provided as a service, including servers, network equipment, memory, CPU, disk space and data center facilities;
b) Dynamic scalability of the infrastructure that can scale horizontally based on the resource needs of the application;
c) Variable cost service based on fixed prices per resource component;
d) Several users and services usually coexist in the same infrastructure resources.
Key Benefits
a) Easy access to a pre-configured environment that is usually based on ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library);
b) Using the latest technology to infrastructure equipment;
c) Secure computing platforms in the “sand-box” (protected and isolated) that are usually monitored by security breaches;
d) Risk reduction due to resources maintained by third parties;
e) Ability to manage peaks and troughs in demand for services;
f) Lower costs that allow the costing of the service rather than making capital investments;
g) Reduction of time, cost and complexity of adding new features or capabilities.
One of the fundamentals of IaaS is that the platform provides a virtual environment that is standardized and automated to be easily consumed by different individuals or departments, with less intervention from IT professionals.
It is due to the benefits provided by public platforms and private cloud mentioned in previous posts that the consumption of resources can be measured within a model that leads to changes in the pattern and conscious consumption, making the units more optimized in order to reduce costs, in order to undertake their own efforts to do so. This is a crucial concept to understand the cloud.
References: RITTINGHOUSE, J. W.; RANSOME, J. F. Cloud Computing Implementation, Management, and Security, 2009, p. 26-89.
