IaaS: Delivering Enterprise-Level Support To Manufacturers
July 21, 2014
Grazed from MBTMag. Author: Adam Stern.
As adoption of cloud computing gains momentum within the manufacturing sector, there’s a corresponding growth in infrastructure-related services, including Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) — a way to provide access to compute resources in a cloud-based environment. What sets IaaS apart is that the resources consist of virtualized hardware — infrastructure that is virtual as well as physical. IaaS offerings range from virtual servers to network connections to load balancers.
The major appeal of cloud server hosting is that the software (and with IaaS, the hardware), is virtualized. The hardware resources that support IaaS are pulled from multiple servers and networks, located across multiple off-site data center and maintained independently of the manufacturer using the service. The company pays a monthly fee to access these resources as needed. It’s the responsibility of the cloud service provider (CSP) to ensure ongoing maintenance of the hardware and virtualized services. And now that enterprise ERP solutions can live and prosper in the cloud — and that CSPs can install, manage, update, protect and support ERP software for a low monthly fee — the question has shifted from “to migrate or not to migrate?” to “which cloud environment suits us best?…
The CSP assumes responsibility for managing the complexities associated with an IT infrastructure. With that important intermediary, manufacturers can tap into cloud resources as their needs grow rather than purchase, install and integrate new hardware internally. This on-demand scalability enables manufacturers to focus on business objectives, without worrying about keeping up with hardware costs to support expansion…
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