The huge advantage of IaaS is that it gives IT departments and organizations the freedom to do their jobs and not worry too much about IT management, because it is handled by a third-party cloud provider.
With this model, some resources can be purchased from cloud infrastructure service providers, which gives IT teams good flexibility. They maintain significant control over the infrastructure by taking over things like operating systems and applications, as well as their organization's databases and data.
There are many reasons why this type of cloud computing is gaining more and more business customers. However, there are some drawbacks as well as challenges that IaaS itself and its users face.
IaaS is a cloud computing model, characterized by the fact that a third-party cloud service provider provides and hosts the hardware or infrastructure components it owns, including servers, network, storage, and operating systems. With storage and infrastructure management covered by IaaS providers, customers access business operations or applications remotely, via the cloud.
Some of the main use cases for IaaS include web-based graphics apps, start-ups, e-commerce, and high-performance computers. All of them can be improved with cloud-based infrastructure, whether it's gaining access, the deployment process, or performing massive calculations.
Cloud infrastructure providers offer access to various types of compute resources and cloud services and can act as public, private, or hybrid cloud providers. The services they sell include, for example, logging and monitoring, load balancing, security, billing management, as well as backup, replication and recovery.
There are many reasons why cloud users praise the IaaS model, and in particular the use of virtual services within the on-demand model. Avoiding the need to purchase and maintain infrastructure is a big plus. These include:
The affordability and ease of access to IaaS, as well as the convenience of continuous use and data backup seem to be of particular interest to many customers. Importantly, both test and development environments can use this cloud computing model.
They are mainly related to dependence on external or third-party vendors, responsible for providing the cloud computing infrastructure. If the service or DBs are a strategic business asset, the use of IaaS could be considered a negative factor.
These include, first of all, the loss of access to IaaS services, due to hardware problems on the side of the provider and servers not working, the failure of the provider, but also due to network bottlenecks or simply the common lack of broadband internet connection.
Additionally, while customer data or applications are generally better protected than they would have been internally, some security issues can arise in this respect as well. Some sensitive data can be overly exposed to hackers, but things like infrastructure setup are often not transparent enough to IaaS provider customers, to name just a few of the major weaknesses of IaaS.
The IaaS disadvantages can be listed as follows:
The cloud shared responsibility model followed by IaaS has its pros and cons, but one of the main problems it entails is distinguishing between supplier and customer responsibilities. This line is sometimes difficult to draw and what exactly is responsible for both sides is difficult to differentiate. As agreements may not be clear, customers should go to great lengths not to leave a single issue open for interpretation, with all levels of security clearly owned by a particular party. This can be critical to building a proper cloud security strategy.
Data storage security, or data protection in general, is actually the basic area that could pose a challenge to both IaaS users and providers. There are many possible risks and setbacks, including misconfiguration, blocking data exfiltration, and some security issues with cloud email.
Another thing that could be quite challenging and time-consuming, especially for larger companies, is data migration and alignment to the IaaS model. For new businesses, however, that's not a big deal, as they can start from scratch or don't have a lot of data to move anyway.
But the migration won't happen in hours or even days, so customers should be prepared to run businesses in a hybrid environment for some time. And they'd better do the math before moving forward with the migration.
In short, some of the main IaaS challenges relate to:
definish supplier and customer responsibilities
make the contractual clauses clear and unambiguous
providing sufficient security measures for data storage and protection
make it easier to migrate the IaaS model to the process
Making use of the infrastructure that someone else provides and takes care of can be an advantage or a disadvantage. It is an advantage when everything is up and running, while it is a disadvantage if an outage occurs. However, the impressive number of IaaS benefits makes Infrastructure as a Service in cloud computing the choice of more and more customers.
It is also worth mentioning the price of such a service which can be a significant amount in the organization's budget. The best world-renowned companies provide state-of-the-art solutions, but often charge accordingly.
When choosing a particular billing model, it is crucial to pay only for the computing resources actually needed, with the ability to expand whenever additional requirements arise, eg. a given business scales quickly.
The scope of the services or the set of components provided should be clearly indicated in a reciprocal agreement. Since no IaaS provider provides everything possible and available in the market, it is a matter of choosing the package that is closest to what the customer wants to achieve.
In fact, renting some IT assets can sometimes be a bit of a challenge for customers, leading them to consider choosing the on-premise model as an alternative. Of course, the IaaS model has already been with us for a decade, making it a vital part of the world of cloud computing services. And, of course, it's here to stay.
Ercole Palmeri: Innovation addicted
Google DeepMind is introducing an improved version of its artificial intelligence model. The new improved model provides not only…
Laravel, famous for its elegant syntax and powerful features, also provides a solid foundation for modular architecture. There…
Cisco and Splunk are helping customers accelerate their journey to the Security Operations Center (SOC) of the future with…
Ransomware has dominated the news for the last two years. Most people are well aware that attacks…
An ophthalmoplasty operation using the Apple Vision Pro commercial viewer was performed at the Catania Polyclinic…
Developing fine motor skills through coloring prepares children for more complex skills like writing. To color…
The naval sector is a true global economic power, which has navigated towards a 150 billion market...
Last Monday, the Financial Times announced a deal with OpenAI. FT licenses its world-class journalism…
