Blog: Infrastructure Performance

Infrastructure as a Service: What is it and Why it Matters

November 30, 2020 - by Synoptek

That IT has become the crux of successful businesses is known to all; unfortunately, many struggles with establishing a robust foundation of the right servers, storage, and networks – often hindering the pace and precision with which they can survive and thrive. Because many organizations mostly rely on a suite of old-fashioned systems and technologies, they also find it extremely challenging to scale their environments quickly and meet new and increased demands. Managing these evolving systems is also a Herculean task, requiring substantial cost and expertise to ensure they operate 24×7 – without interruption.

This throws the spotlight on Infrastructure as a Service that empowers these organizations to leverage the best and most modern IT infrastructure components to run their businesses – without having to manage or support them – thus focusing on their core operations and not worrying about the infrastructure that powers them.

Infrastructure as a Service Explained

Gartner defines Infrastructure as a Service as “a standardized, highly automated offering in which computing resources owned by a service provider, complemented by storage and networking capabilities, are offered to customers on demand”. It delivers the full compute stack to organizations over the Internet, allowing them to consume just what they need while freeing from complex and expensive administrative tasks.

Because it enables organizations to scale (and shrink) resources as and when needed, it eliminates the need for high, upfront capital expenditures – thus greatly cutting costs and delivering the kind of flexibility needed to accommodate the growing demand for service. It also allows organizations to streamline their existing infrastructure while having access to needed resources to run their business efficiently.

The Numerous Benefits

Keeping up with the pace of digital transformation, competitive pressures, and evolving customer demands means organizations must constantly work towards developing and delivering robust IT services. As an assortment of physical and virtualized resources, Infrastructure as a Service provides organizations with the basic building blocks required to operate applications and workloads as per current trends. Analysts expect the Infrastructure as a Service market to be worth $202.50 billion by 2027. The benefits it offers are numerous:

1. Seamless Scalability: One of the biggest benefits of Infrastructure as a Service is the ability to scale computing resources on the fly. This means whenever there is an increase in demand, organizations can seamlessly scale their organizations – and ensure consistent performance of workloads and applications.

2. Greater Reliability: The on-demand service model makes it extremely easy for organizations to have access to the resources they need, when they need them. Because IT resources are constantly updated and always available, organizations can be sure to have access to modern compute capabilities needed to efficiently run their business.

3. Minimized CapEx: Unlike traditional on-premise IT infrastructures that require substantial upfront investments in terms of license costs, implementation costs, and support and maintenance, Infrastructure as a Service minimizes (or even completely eliminates) CapEx. Organizations have to pay for the IT resources they use, thus optimizing overall costs.

4. Enhanced Security: Modern Infrastructure as a Service providers constantly invest in state-of-the-art security postures and integrate them into the core of their business models. Organizations can be assured of having encrypted access to compute resources that are constantly updated as per the latest security and compliance regulations.

5. Business Focus: Infrastructure as a Service also helps in eliminating the need for constant monitoring and management of the underlying IT infrastructure. This means organizations can drive all their time and energy to developing their business and not worrying about upgrading their systems, implementing patches, or fixing issues.

Focus on Core Offering

The modern business landscape is extremely volatile; the demand for products and services are extremely erratic. Yet, organizations are expected to constantly keep an eye on changing needs and provide value in an accelerated, efficient, and cost-effective manner. Infrastructure as a Service empowers organizations with the storage, networking, and operating capabilities needed to run their businesses and deliver cutting-edge services to customers. By providing access to secure and reliable on-demand resources on a pay-as-you-go model, it allows organizations to minimize CapEx and scale as needed while driving all their focus on their core business offering.

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