State of Cloud Computing: IaaS

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Matthew Ramsey.

Unless your enterprise is just becoming aware of cloud computing, you have probably heard much about Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) vendors. The IaaS model is an evolving one. As the applications and benefits of implementing one continue to mount, the number of vendors providing cloud services on this scale continues to grow.

The benefits of shifting to an IaaS model are as follows:

• IT can focus more on contributing to the corporate brand and the innovations that go along with producing successful product lines.
• Computing infrastructure, software applications, and supporting elements such as heating and cooling systems are not needed in-house, at least on the same scale as before. This contributes to a reduction of expenses, energy consumed, and Total Cost of Ownership.
• Hardware, servers, and storage are managed as separate services. You can either pay for what you plan to use or pay as you go, depending on the service provider. Based on what is actually needed, the services can be scaled up and down per demand.
• Provisioned users can access enterprise infrastructure from anywhere, supporting company wide efforts to include mobile devices in the network…

The flexibility an IaaS model provides is becoming increasingly appealing to businesses of all sizes. A reduction in hardware overhead means lower costs of acquisition, maintenance, and energy. Plus, the time spent on setup and provisioning of these is saved for other tasks. Profits in the IaaS industry reached into the billions in 2011, with projections suggesting this could increase exponentially in the coming years. A number of familiar names and emerging players are populating the cloud vendor market…

Read more from the source @ http://www.business2community.com/tech-gadgets/state-of-cloud-computing-iaas-0385649