Investing in computer hardware is a major expense for almost every business. Not only is purchasing the equipment expensive, providing the floor space the devices require, along with cooling systems, electricity, and ongoing support and maintenance, means that the true cost of owning and operating the devices is far in excess of the purchase cost.
For companies that want to reduce those costs, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is an alternative with significant benefits. IaaS is one of the three main flavors of cloud computing (the others are Platform as a Service, PaaS, and Software as a Service, SaaS). In IaaS, the cloud provider handles the physical infrastructure required by computing, including servers and storage components, as well as establishing the networking between them.
This model gives the business complete control over their virtual machines, while removing the requirement of purchasing and supporting underlying physical hardware. This lets you take advantage of several benefits:
1. Access the processors and storage devices you need
Cloud providers typically offer several kinds of server instances and different kinds of storage to meet the needs of different processing workloads and they continually upgrade their offerings. You’ll be able to choose the configuration your applications require, rather than being locked into devices purchased based on previous estimates of your needs.
2. Adjust your capacity as your requirements change
The typical long procurement cycle means that companies are slow to respond to requirements for new technology—either that, or they compensate by buying equipment before it’s needed. IaaS lets you add capacity and technology when they’re needed, meaning businesses can quickly extend capacity to satisfy new demand, spin up a development and test environment to rapidly prototype a solution, or experiment with new technology without a major upfront investment.
3. Receive expert support and maintenance
The IaaS provider owns the responsibility for servicing the equipment you receive from them. Not only do you receive timely, expert support from their team, your own IT team is freed up to resolve the problems that add value to your business.
4. Improve your disaster recovery (DR) capability
The IaaS provider has spare capacity on standby should there be any hardware problems that affect your instance. They’ll rapidly switch you over to new servers, minimizing the downtime you experience. While you still need a DR process, you can rely on the IaaS provider’s services to provide a significant level of redundancy and high availability.
5. Improved financials
Using IaaS turns computer equipment into an operating expense, rather than a capital expense. You no longer need to budget for the large, one-time costs of purchasing equipment and instead have smaller, more manageable monthly outflows.
dcVAST offers IaaS built on the Oracle Enterprise Cloud. Our IaaS solution provides you a flexible architecture that supports your current business needs and will readily scale to meet your future needs. Read our Guide to Infrastructure as a Service to learn about how you can leverage this technology to benefit your business, and then contact us to find out more about our services and solutions.
