Private cloud and IaaS are more than hype in this day and age. The adoption of both cloud managed services and infrastructure has tremendously grown. It’s predicted that by 2025, the amount of data stored in cloud servers will surpass 100 Zettabytes (Source: Cybercrime magazine). Sometimes these cloud computing terms such as SaaS, PaaS, Private Cloud, IaaS, Public Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, and others may seem a bit too confusing. Figuring them out on your own might take much research and probably consultation with various cloud managed service providers. We are here to widen your knowledge base by offering you clarity so that you can take your first step towards cloud adoption.
What is Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) in cloud computing?
The form of cloud technology where you get access to virtual computing resources over the internet is IaaS. The cloud service provider manages your entire IT infrastructure in this particular model, such as network resources, storage, and server. They deliver this managed service to you via virtual desktop infrastructure that is accessible through the internet. The pros for IaaS are:
- Cost-Effective:Your infrastructure is set up and managed by the cloud managed services provider. Therefore, it’s more reliable and robust which helps you save your business’ upfront costs associated with purchasing, maintaining, and operating hardware.
- Security: Security is very important for your IT environment. Most IaaS cloud providers make significant investments in their IT security measures thereby offering you higher levels of security and protection.
- Scalability: You can scale your business up and down based on your requirements. IaaS ensures that your business can handle this scalability through procedures like automatic provisioning of resources
- Prepared against adversities: IaaS cloud computing ensures that your IT environment is prepped up for the worst case scenarios. Most solution providers host their equipment in highly secure, available, and purposely built data centers with access to continuous power, cooling, and network connectivity. In case of any disaster event, time taken to restore your infrastructure will be reduced.
- Ability to expand business: With lesser pressure in running and managing your IT environment, you will be able to focus on growing your business. You will have ample time and resources to develop your applications and solutions.
In short, your cloud solution provider hosts every infrastructure component such as networking hardware, servers, storage, and others that is available on an on-premises data center. IaaS providers also offer a range of services in addition to these infrastructure components such as monitoring, log access, clustering, storage resiliency, and the list goes on. United Private Cloud in particular, offers you a fully managed infrastructure and database irrespective of your business size and platform. You would be able to receive OS and Hypervisor patching/management along with AWS, Azure, GCP management.
What is a private cloud?
Private cloud solution is a computing model which offers you a proprietary environment dedicated to your business. With this cloud managed service, you receive extended virtual desktop infrastructure resources through physical components stored on-premise or at the data center of your cloud vendor. The best part of this kind of cloud solution is that you can configure the environment and manage it in a way that is uniquely suited to your company’s data requirements. There are certain key benefits you receive when you choose private cloud computing:
- You can comply with strict regulatory requirements because sensitive data is held on hardware that anyone else cannot access.
- You can fully configure your cloud environment to run proprietary software.
- When any of your software applications require additional computing resources, you can hybridize these resources from your private cloud to a public cloud. It will keep up the uptime without installing any additional physical servers.
- Private cloud ensures the continuity of your business as you have privacy, technology adaptability, and control of your data for as long as you want to stay in the industry.
- You receive improved levels of security compared to that of the public cloud. All of your data is saved and managed on servers to which no other company has any access, thereby offering you privacy as well. If the servers are located in a datacenter the internal IT team accesses it via highly secure networks instead of using everyday unsecured internet.
Private clouds rely on virtualization technology to combine resources. A layer of management software is then added to help you gain administrative control over the infrastructure, applications, platforms, and data used in the cloud. It helps you to track and optimize usage, oversee integration points, and retain or recover data. Finally, a layer of automation is added to replace or cut down human interaction with repeatable functions.
How are IaaS and Private Cloud related?
Infrastructure-as-a-Service is an entire infrastructure made of networking resources, storage, and server hosted on a public cloud that offers these resources your company’s exclusive ownership. It is not equal to a private cloud when we talk about an apt cloud computing service. IaaS is far more limited than private cloud, which is powerful and can deliver computing resources far beyond just the infrastructure.
Another relationship between the two is that you can deploy IaaS as a part of the private cloud. Still it won’t match the number of offerings that come in with the private cloud deployment. A private cloud solution can be independent of other computing resources and functions similar to an on-site data center. Such a private cloud environment can still be managed virtually while offering more add-on services otherwise not available in a strict IaaS service. Vendors can also package private cloud as a comprehensive cloud computing product. In this case, a hosted cloud would include:
- Traditional infrastructural resources of an IaaS solution and 24/7/365 IT management resources.
- Security.
- Access for the users.
- Cloud assessment and migration.
- Container and mesh service management.
Therefore you must not think of IaaS as a synonym for private cloud, but you definitely get more features and advantages when you opt for the latter than just the infrastructure. It becomes a fruitful venture to combine the power of private cloud and IaaS to maximize your business operations.
Even though there is a clear demarcation between these two cloud computing terms, the primary appeal of IaaS is its ability to virtualize both software and hardware. Suppose your company has a smaller budget for virtualization, or you have minimal requirements from your cloud infrastructure. In that case, you definitely will be intrigued by how much IaaS could offer your business. United Private Cloud has a built-in IaaS private cloud service to manage your systems, database, and network to help you focus on your business growth initiatives. You will be able to drastically improve your performance and customer satisfaction once you adopt our cloud computing managed solution. You experience performance, scalability, and availability along with greater control and security with this enterprise-grade private cloud. Have a peek at our website now to find how we can fit your bill!
