Cloud Computing IaaS : Infrastructure as a Service

We started with the basic primer article on Cloud Computing IaaS, SaaS and PaaS. These terms might hear to be very complicated, in fact the technology behind Cloud Computing IaaS is really complicated, but we will discuss only the working principle of Cloud Computing IaaS with minimal depth on the topic.

There are few standard text books available on Cloud Computing IaaS, if you want to learn in depth about Cloud Computing IaaS, you can buy and read them. Basically, this article on Cloud Computing IaaS is semi-digested to make you understand the basic working principle of Cloud Computing IaaS.

What Cloud Computing IaaS Stands for?

You might have noticed, we are saying Cloud Computing IAAS, not IAAS or Iaas; the reason is, IAAS (or IaaS) is standard abbreviations used in other branches of science too.

SaaS stands for Software as a Service. To understand where from IaaS came, you need to understand the Levels or hierarchy of cloud services. Very easy : There are three levels of cloud services for different target groups : IaaS, PaaS and SaaS.  At the lowest level is the Cloud Computing IaaS.

In other words, you or me are actually using Cloud Computing IaaS unknowingly : If you use the Virtual Servers of Rackspace or Amazon Cloud provided by your organization, you will be actually using IaaS.

How Cloud Computing IaaS works?

The main infrastructure of  Cloud Computing IaaS is based on Virtualization technology; computers, storage, networking and other major needed resources are offered as services.

Users need to pay only that are using. In other words, IaaS is delivering physical hardware that performs the services, but the users or the organizations do not have to buy the hardwares.

If you are getting dizzy with the heavy weight term “Virtualization technology” ; here is an basic article Basics of server virtualization. We hope it will help you understanding this article on Cloud Computing IaaS as well.