What is Infrastructure as a Service?

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a cloud computing service that provides access to computing resources in a virtualized environment through the internet. In IaaS model computing resources are provided to users are specifically related to virtualized hardware. Example of Infrastructure as a Service are virtual server space, network connections, bandwidth, IP addresses and load balancers. Physically, the pool of hardware resource is pulled from multitude of servers and networks usually distributed across numerous data centers, all of which the cloud provider is responsible for maintaining. The client, on the other hand, is given access to the virtualized components in order to build their own IT platforms.

Infrastructure as a Service is used by enterprise customers to develop cost effective and easily scalable IT solutions wherein the complexities and expenses of managing the underlying hardware are outsourced to a cloud provider. If the scale of business operations fluctuate, clients can tap into the cloud resource as and when required need it rather than purchase, install and integrate hardware themselves.