Overview#

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a Cloud Services Model which provides self-service models for assessing, monitoring, and managing remote Data Center infrastructures, such as compute (Virtual Machine or bare metal), Data Store Service, networking, and Network devices (e.g. firewalls).

With Infrastructure as a Service instead of having to purchase hardware outright, users can purchase Infrastructure as a Service based on consumption, similar to electricity or other utility billing.

Infrastructure as a Service users are responsible for managing applications, data, runtime, middleware, and Operating Systems. Unlike when using to Software as a Service and Platform as a Service,

Cloud Service Providers manage Virtualization, servers, disks, DataStores, and networks.

Many Infrastructure as a Service providers now offer databases, messaging queues, and other services above the virtualization layer as well.

Some tech analysts draw a distinction here and use the Infrastructure as a Service moniker for these other options. What users gain with IaaS is infrastructure on top of which they can install any required platform. Users are responsible for updating these if new versions are released.

More Information#

There might be more information for this subject on one of the following:

• AWS Simple Notification Service
• Azure
• BigQuery
• Cloud Services Model
• Computing Service
• Google Compute Engine
• IaaS