Infrastructure as a Service: A Growing Force in Cloud Computing

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offers a flexible, scalable, and cost-efficient solution to simplify the complexity of managing IT infrastructure. IaaS enables you to provision and access virtualized hardware and resources online while your partner manages the technology powering your infrastructure.

IaaS has quickly become an instrumental part of cloud computing. Companies are investing more than $150 billion in IaaS services in 2023, making up about a third of all cloud spending. Why are so many companies moving to IaaS solutions? We’ll explain the benefits of IaaS and how a managed service provider (MSP) can leverage their expertise to help businesses make the transition cost-effectively.

What is infrastructure as a service (IaaS)?

IaaS provides the infrastructure to support cloud storage, networking resourcing, web and application servers, and web apps. Rather than having to maintain this infrastructure yourself, an MSP can help you identify the right environment with the right cloud service provider that aligns with your business goals.

An MSP can help you find the right mix of services, handle the transition or transformation of your business, and create a plan for evolution as your business grows.

Benefits of IaaS

IaaS can offer businesses of all sizes significant benefits, including:

Cost savings

Cloud service providers provide and manage the hardware, so you do not have to make the hefty capital investment upfront or worry about keeping the equipment maintained. There’s no concern about equipment becoming obsolete, and any hardware problems will be handled by your cloud provider.

Right-sizing and scaling

Companies often overspend when it comes to hardware purchases, making sure they have the resources they may need in the future. However, studies show that the majority of businesses spend money on capacity they’ll never need.

With IaaS, you don’t have to worry about overprovisioning. Services are delivered on a pay-as-you-go model, so you only pay for what you need.

Cloud resources are also highly-scalable, so you can right-size your infrastructure for your current needs without worrying about capacity for peak loads, seasonal demands, or growth. If you need more capacity, it’s easy to scale fast.

Flexibility and reliability

You can quickly add or adjust resources to meet workload demands.

IaaS also has high availability. When you build your infrastructure on a platform like Microsoft Azure, for example, you get a highly redundant infrastructure. There are no single points of failure across the Azure ecosystem.

Back-up and recovery

This redundancy means your data can be backed up automatically, making business continuity and disaster recovery easier.

Speed and performance

The flexibility and scalability can be a significant competitive advantage. You can provision the resources you need within minutes, increasing your time to value. Rather than waiting to purchase, install and configure equipment, you can quickly add the resources you need.

Security

IaaS platforms are exceptionally secure. For example, Microsoft has announced plans to spend $20 billion on cybersecurity to protect its platforms over the next five years.

Is IaaS right for your businesss?

If you are evaluating whether IaaS is a good fit for your business, there are several factors you should examine, including:

• Cost analysis: Analyze your current and future computing needs to compare the cost-effectiveness of IaaS against on-prem or Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) options.

• Technology: Part of your cost analysis should include an inventory of your legacy recourses. If your equipment is heading towards end-of-life, you can save money by moving to an IaaS solution. However, if your infrastructure is built on outdated systems, you may need to modernize before adopting IaaS.

• Workload and infrastructure needs: You will also want to assess your utilization in terms of workloads. For example, if your infrastructure utilization varies, IaaS can often provide significant cost savings.

• IT expertise: Managing your infrastructure yourself can be challenging and costly, especially with today’s shortage of IT talent. IaaS can reduce the burden on your IT team, but you may also need to invest in upskilling your team to manage hybrid and cloud environments.

• Security and compliance: You will also want to identify your security and regulatory compliance obligations.

Making sure IaaS is right for you and making the right choices are important decisions. An MSP can provide expert guidance to help you analyze your unique situation and help you make a more informed decision.

How managed service providers can help?

Partnering with an MSP enables businesses to maximize the benefits of IaaS while minimizing risk. The right MSP, like Sagiss, can help you:

• Evaluate your IaaS options and provide unbiased recommendations

• Develop a roadmap for moving to the cloud (or not)

• Migrate your legacy infrastructure, applications, and data to the cloud

• Manage the IaaS environment and provide support

• Monitor performance, security, and costs to optimize efficiency

• Ensure your infrastructure is up-to-date and in compliance

• Serve as a single point of contact for all issues related to the IaaS environment.

An MSP works as an extension of your team. This lets you remain focused on your core competencies while your MSP manages your infrastructure.

Contact Sagiss for IaaS

MSPs play a crucial role in leveraging IaaS to benefit businesses from planning to implementation to management.

Contact the IaaS experts at Sagiss today to talk about your options.

Sagiss is a certified managed services provider and a Microsoft Gold partner.