Infrastructure as a Service — Technology Wiki

Overview

Direct Answer

Infrastructure as a Service is a cloud computing model delivering virtualised computing resources—including servers, storage, networking, and virtualisation—as on-demand services over the internet. Customers provision and manage these resources without owning or maintaining physical hardware.

How It Works

A cloud provider operates shared physical infrastructure in data centres and abstracts it into logical pools accessible via APIs or web consoles. Customers instantiate virtual machines, allocate storage volumes, and configure networks on demand, paying only for consumption. The provider handles hardware maintenance, redundancy, and infrastructure security whilst the customer maintains responsibility for operating systems, middleware, and applications.

Why It Matters

IaaS eliminates capital expenditure on servers and reduces operational overhead, enabling organisations to scale capacity elastically with business demand. This model accelerates deployment cycles and allows teams to focus engineering effort on applications rather than infrastructure procurement and maintenance.

Common Applications

Development and testing environments, web application hosting, batch processing workloads, and disaster recovery solutions commonly utilise this model. Enterprise organisations deploy business applications, whilst startups use it to avoid upfront infrastructure investment.

Key Considerations

Organisations must manage security at the application and data layers whilst relying on provider security for the underlying infrastructure. Network latency, data residency compliance, and vendor lock-in warrant careful evaluation during adoption planning.

Cross-References(1)

Cloud Computing

Related in Service Models

Cloud Computing

The delivery of computing services — servers, storage, databases, networking, software — over the internet on demand.

Platform as a Service

Cloud computing model that provides a platform for developers to build, deploy, and manage applications without managing infrastructure.

Software as a Service

Cloud computing model that delivers software applications over the internet on a subscription basis.

Function as a Service

A serverless cloud computing model where individual functions are executed in response to events.

Serverless Computing

A cloud execution model where the provider dynamically allocates resources, charging only for actual compute time used.

Cloud-Native

An approach to building applications that fully exploit cloud computing advantages like elasticity, resilience, and automation.

Private Cloud

Cloud computing resources used exclusively by a single organisation, either on-premises or hosted by a third party.

Public Cloud

Cloud computing resources shared among multiple organisations and available to the general public over the internet.

Managed Service

A cloud service where the provider handles infrastructure management, maintenance, updates, and monitoring.

Cloud Cost Optimisation

Strategies and practices for minimising cloud computing expenses while maintaining performance and functionality.

Spot Instance

A cloud computing option that uses spare capacity at significantly reduced prices with the possibility of interruption.

Cloud Orchestration

The automated arrangement, coordination, and management of complex cloud computing systems and services.

More in Cloud Computing

Multi-Cloud Strategy

Strategy & Economics

An approach that distributes workloads across multiple cloud providers to avoid vendor lock-in, optimise costs, meet regulatory requirements, and improve resilience.

Microservices

Architecture Patterns

An architectural style structuring an application as a collection of loosely coupled, independently deployable services.

Internal Developer Portal

Deployment & Operations

A centralised web interface that provides developers with self-service access to infrastructure, services, documentation, and templates within their organisation.

REST API

Architecture Patterns

An API architectural style using HTTP methods and stateless communication for web service interaction.

Content Delivery Network

Architecture Patterns

A distributed network of servers that delivers web content to users based on their geographic location.

Terraform

Deployment & Operations

An open-source infrastructure as code tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently.

Cloud-Native Development

Service Models

An approach to building applications that fully exploit cloud computing advantages including microservices, containers, dynamic orchestration, and continuous delivery.

Docker

Infrastructure

A platform for developing, shipping, and running applications in isolated containers with consistent environments.