Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

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Executive Summary

Introduction

IaaS – A Brief Overview

How IaaS Can Help Businesses cut costs

Top Business Concerns

IaaS Motivation: Factors

Key benefits of Adopting IaaS Model

Service Provider’s and Enterprise: Job Responsibility

Choosing a Trusted IaaS Provider

Conclusion

CONTENTS

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Executive Summary Page |1

Cloud has become an integral element of the IT eco-system for every organization. An increasing number of organizations in multiple industries – IT & ITES, telecommunications, manufacturing and government bodies are adopting cloud-enabled services to streamline their business operations and reduce costs. Chief Technology Officers across organizations are adopting Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) to transform their IT infrastructure by utilizing shared pools of compute and storage capacity, via Internet on a self-service basis. This consumption model eliminates or slashes down the need to procure, house, maintain, backup and, noticeably, replace hardware in house. Having access to on-demand resources is increasingly valuable, as it reduces complexities, streamlines operations, increases productivity, and simplifies infrastructure management.

Introduction

Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model is gaining traction among businesses. The advent of more powerful, streamlined and cost-effective cloud-enabled services is fueling this migration process by giving organizations another infrastructure management alternative. A large number of enterprises are adopting Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions to respond to their changing business needs. After all, this computing wing enables organizations to leverage bandwidth, storage, and computing resources on an on-demand basis over the network.

This whitepaper outlines the significance of IaaS model in the current business environment and identifies key elements for selecting the right IaaS provider to handle mission-critical enterprise requirements for organizations.


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Factors that are feeding motivation among businesses to adopt IaaS environment differ from business to business – cost savings and quick provisioning being on the top. Another key value-driving feature that attracts both SMEs and blue chip organizations is its ultimate transparency in utilization and costs. Today, there are a large number of infrastructure service providers in the market that ensure the availability of resources and performance, perform ongoing maintenance and monitoring tasks, and provide round the clock expert support. The potential and capabilities to deliver requisite IT infrastructure are critical considerations in the service provider’s selection process.


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According to a study conducted by Gartner, Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) spending will reach $72 billion at compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42 percent during the forecast period 2013-2016.

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Figure : Public Cloud Services Market Size by Segment 2010-2016

PaaS SaaS BPaaS


Page |3IaaS: A Brief Overview

IaaS is a standardized and highly automated cloud computing service model that provides quick access to storage, networks, and other vital computing capabilities over Internet. It is one of the three most popular cloud computing services – IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS. The virtual machines are configured with hypervisors such as Xen, Hyper-V, VMware ESX/ESXi, and KVM that can support large numbers of virtual machines. Owned and hosted by third-party service providers, this popular cloud platform eliminates the need of purchasing servers, software, datacenter space, and networking equipment. In addition to this, the complexities accompanied with infrastructure management also gets offloaded. In IaaS, the scope of offerings, technology, and configuration alternatives may vary from provider to provider.



IaaS: Core Capabilities

Elastic ComputeCapacity

Elastic Compute

Dedicated Compute

Elastic Storage

Archive Storage

Shared File Storage

VPN

VPN for DedicatedCompute

Fast Connect

Reliable CloudStorage

Ultra-fast &Secure Network


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The economies of scale are an inherent attribute of IaaS that enables enterprises across different verticals to save on expenses. With IaaS, businesses can make sagacious and strategic investment in cloud, rather than sinking their capitals in procurement and management of hardware and other IT components. IaaS promotes self-provisioning and charges clients on a pay-per-use basis.



How IaaS Can Help Businesses cut costs

Infrastructure ManagementIaaS model offloads all the burden pertaining to Infrastructure setup and management. Experts at provider’s end manage, update, reboot, and perform patching of servers, which evidently offers cost benefits. Cost is not the only benefit that comes at the forefront. Besides cost savings, professionals with hands-on-experience manage all the IT architecture to curtail security breaches and free internal IT taskforce to focus on strategic thinking and innovation.

Compute & Hardware ProvisioningIaaS works on an on-demand basis, enabling clients to immediately provision computing resources including virtual server space, network connections, firewalls, bandwidth, and load balancers on an on-need basis. This, in turn, offloads the cost of hiring internal staff to buy, install, and configure servers, and thereby, adds unique value proposition. In addition to this, the costs incurred on travelling, manpower hiring, and adding/replacing equipment also get alleviated.


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Dynamic Resource ProvisioningOverprovisioning and under provisioning of computing resources can have adverse impacts on company’s revenue cycle as well as on its bottom-line performance. Cloud IaaS model is subjected to dynamic resource provisioning, enabling clients to scale resources to deal with dense peak requirements and cutback when the surge in demand is over.

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43%

29%

23%

19%

15%

Cost savings on hardware / infrastructure

Capacity Management

Disaster recovery / business continuity

Cost savings on IT staffing / administration

Ability to access new skills / capabilities

Source: Yankee Group Webinar Q&A: “Pinning Down Cloud Computing”

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Disaster Recovery & Business ContinuityThe intensifying cyber threats and catastrophic events always remind of having failsafe disaster recovery and business continuity solutions functional round the clock. In this regard, conventional BC/DR solutions are not only intricate but also expensive. On the other side of the equation, IaaS providers tap into the latest technologies and offer hosted servers, located in different geographic location to ensure failsafe disaster recovery and load balancing, all in an exchange of flexible subscription fee.

Unparalleled ExpertiseA trusted IaaS partner provides expert advice and assists at every stage of transition process, starting from the assessment and planning to cloud migration and management of hosted services. This, in turn, eliminates the cost of hiring and training new people to embark on the cloud journey.



A report by Cisco suggests that IaaS offerings are proving attractive for both providers and enterprise consumers.

Compliance and Security NeedsEvery business is different, and so are their regulatory and compliance demands. Setting up security tools or performing regular audits consumes time and money. A trusted IaaS provider has resources and a smorgasbord of options that can help in meeting your specific compliance and security needs.

According to Gartner’s 2015 CIO survey, around 83% of CIOs now consider IaaS as an infrastructure option

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Business Concerns - IaaS OpportunitiesThe business case for IaaS is indispensably compelling. The transition to IaaS is picking up pace as forward-looking businesses are realizing what they can lose if forward steps are not taken yet. Most of the organizations that utilize a variety of server architectures or operating systems face difficulties in managing fragmented IT resources. Furthermore, many of today’s organizations lack funding and IT resources to support their own IT setup. As a result, the new IaaS paradigm is gaining acceptance, which not only offloads additional system management issues but also streamlines work operations.

Indeed, enterprises’ reasons for considering IaaS can be manifold, however, for SMBs and enterprises, cost savings remains the key factor.

EconomicPressure

Fear to LagBehind

Competition

Hefty Capitaland Operating

Costs

ComplicatedInfrastructureManagement

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The increasing economic uncertainty and business perils are pushing businesses to bring flexible and economical alternatives in place to address such challenges.

Enterprises are under constant pressure to ensure that their IT infrastructure encompasses capabilities to meet ongoing challenges.

Enterprises are required to ensure that their IT resources accomplish both financial and strategic objectives without sacrificing on performance and incurring hefty outlays.

Market reports suggest that increasing competition will outflank businesses that are reluctant to embrace this value-centric model.

IaaS Motivation: Factors

Key Benefits of Adopting IaaS Model

Cloud IaaS is underpinned with a number of attributes that can help businesses to move faster and make the best out of available market opportunities:

Financial FlexibilityIaaS model demands no upfront investments, enabling organizations to host their IT systems in a state-of-the-art computing environment, which reduces capital expenditure incurred on infrastructure resources. Furthermore, pay-per-use pricing model ensures significant cost savings and allows clients to optimize their IT investments.

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Greater ScalabilityAlong with pay-per-use consumption model, IaaS provides businesses a flexibility to spin up and down in response to the changing market needs. IaaS providers are underpinned with latest storage, servers, and networking technologies to meet simple to complex infrastructural needs of enterprise customers. Besides providing elasticity, IaaS also curtails undesirable consequences that entail due to over-provisioning and under-provisioning of compute resources.

Business AgilityThe on-demand scalability of IaaS enables companies to access IT and networking resources without getting involved in intricate IT infrastructure management. This level of elasticity allows clients to quickly accomplish their desired business goals and ramp up on business opportunities.

High availability with SLAsMost of the IaaS providers today offer wider range of services that are ubiquitously available and accessible. Such offerings are backed by high availability guarantee with SLAs based on fault-tolerant technologies to ensure that enterprise infrastructure remains available 24 hours a day without a miss.

---- Frost & Sullivan

CIOs consider business continuity and preparing for disaster recovery the top drivers for adopting IaaS.“

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Consolidated DR InfrastructureIaaS gives businesses a flexibility to work and access resources from anywhere. One of the strategic benefits that businesses leverage after collaborating with an IaaS provider is the peace of mind through robust disaster recovery architecture, which, in turn, ensures that businesses stay remain accessible and functional, no matter what disastrous situation arrives.

Better GrowthIaaS offerings help in bringing down the efforts, capital, and time spent in making IT decisions and hiring technical staff. IaaS also enables enterprises to re-utilize existing technology, code, and lock-in. Businesses considering this model can focus on their key competencies, as they need not spend time on infrastructure management and maintenance.

Service Provider’s and Enterprise: Job Responsibility

An IaaS Provider Manages



Servers Virtualization Server HW Storage Networking

Businesses Manage

Choosing a Trusted IaaS Provider

Before commencing a cloud IaaS move, IT decision-makers need to thoroughly comprehend the potential advantages of utilizing IaaS solutions and determine how strategically they can move their resources to the cloud. The probability of risks are evidently high when moving in-house IT resources to a third-party IaaS provider. That’s why it is indispensably important to ensure that the IaaS benefactor possesses in-depth knowledge and expertise in taking up this transition. Also, their strategy development should balance significant tradeoffs, such as competitive advantage, operational change, and capex/opex expenses.

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Applications Runtimes Security Databases

Here is a list of questions that businesses should consider whenteaming up with the IaaS vendor:

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SLAComprehend the SLA thoroughly and ensure what services are covered under this agreement. SLAs differ from providers to providers, therefore it is important to ascertain that they deliver transparency in reporting and communications.

ScalabilityEnsure that the service provider’s facility is equipped with latest technologies, servers, storage capacities, and networking components to foster your scaling business needs.

MigrationEnsure what strategies and procedures are involved to undertake the in-house to IaaS migration process, and how long it would take to accomplish the migration process and the costs associated with it.

Lock-in PeriodEnsure what is the minimum lock-in period, so that if you wish to switch to another vendor, you can easily do so.



Data BackupAnother important aspect to consider is to understand what backup solution the IaaS provider offers, and how and where the business critical data is backed.

Network OptionsEnsure that the service provider supports VPNs or dedicated connections. A trusted IaaS benefactor ensures peace of mind by proffering a comprehensive suite of tools for management, monitoring, and reporting, and enhanced customer service.

NETWORKOPTIONS

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Conclusion: Flexibility, scalability, and reliability are the three innate characteristics of cloud computing model. It helps enterprises meet their specific business goals. IaaS provides clients an instant access to computing, storage, and networking solutions for both existing and new projects on a pay-per-use basis. Organizations across different verticals are taking steps to find a trusted partner that deliver IT capabilities that help them meet their core needs and take up the smooth transition process. When partnering with an IaaS vendor, organizations should evaluate the capabilities of a service provider with respect to budgeting, scalability, and cost-savings. IT decision-makers that have yet not thought about this influential model, it is the right time to make a move as market for cloud is maturing with no signs of slowing down.



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NetworkOptions

DataBackup

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