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Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): what is it and why you should start your journey to the Cloud

Date posted:

16 August 2017

Author:

Cem Ahmet

So, what is it?

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – is a cloud service utilising virtual servers from which you can run your normal business applications. These virtual servers are an alternative to the traditional on premise or data centre hosted physical servers and are often accompanied by appropriate storage, security, and networking facilities. IaaS is usually provided on an OpEx payment model, allowing you to pay for what you use on a monthly basis – saving the need for upfront large capital investment in hardware.

What should you consider when reviewing your infrastructure?

OK, so we know that there are now two credible options when designing your organisation’s infrastructure:

The traditional way – physical on premise hardware to store, manage and maintain and usually with a CapEx investment model. Or, the direction a lot of businesses are heading in today – cloud services. Removing all or some of your onsite servers to a cloud based environment and on to an OpEx model. Making it easy to budget and scale capacity when needed, without the riskier upfront investment. Moving to the cloud can also improve security and resiliency in your network and give you greater flexibility as your business grows.

With so much to consider from compliance to functionality, moving to a cloud service can be a very costly decision to get wrong. To get it right, you need the right expertise and support which isn’t always available internally, or more importantly, for free! Here are our key considerations:

  1. Price. Whether we like it or not, this is always at the forefront of most business decisions. The reason a business will choose a cloud service is often so they don’t feel limited or constrained by hardware purchase decisions.
  1. Resilience and security need to be a serious consideration too. Ensuring your corporate data is secure and remains protected and accessible during any unplanned downtime is critical. And, with fines in the millions for non-compliance of governed regulations around data coming with new regulation in 2018 [can link to the GDPR info here], it’ll end up much more pricey to not have these measures in place. This must include extensive back-up and disaster recovery to not only ensure you remain complaint but also to ensure you remain productive as a business.
  1. High levels of both logical and physical security for your data needs to be a deciding factor. Use of encryption, not as an after-thought but as a standard mode of practice – both for data in transit and at rest.
  1. Scalability and flexibility – choosing a service that can scale with your business as you grow will be important to ensure you won’t be held back restrictive contracts or unnecessary commitments.
  1. Finally, your day to day business needs. What applications do you need to run? What will be your bandwidth requirements? Do you have any upcoming plans for test environments or the requirement for temporary servers? Are there industry compliance regulations you need to ensure you adhere to? Then this all needs to be considered in your buying decision.

For more information of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) contact our experts on 0333 014 0000.

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16 August 2017 | Cem Ahmet

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The views in this article are the personal views of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by Gamma.