Infrastructure

as a Service
(IaaS)
On-Demand access to IT resources
with reduced operational costs
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 CONTENTS

1 Executive Summary

2 Introduction

3 IaaS A Brief Overview

4 How IaaS Can Help Businesses cut costs

5 Top Business Concerns

6 IaaS Motivation: Factors

7 Key benets of Adopting IaaS Model

8 Service Providers and Enterprise: Job Responsibility

9 Choosing a Trusted IaaS Provider

10 Conclusion

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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 Ofcers 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 simplies infrastructure
management.

This whitepaper outlines the signicance of IaaS model in the current

business environment and identies key elements for selecting the
right IaaS provider to handle mission-critical enterprise requirements
for organizations.

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.

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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 providers selection process.
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.

250 Billions Management & Security Services

of Dollars IaaS PaaS SaaS BPaaS

200

150

100

50

0
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Figure : Public Cloud Services Market Size by Segment 2010-2016

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IaaS: A Brief Overview Page | 3

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 congured 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 ofoaded. In IaaS, the scope of offerings,
technology, and conguration alternatives may vary from provider to provider.

IaaS: Core Capabilities

Elastic Compute Reliable Cloud Ultra-fast &

Capacity Storage Secure Network

Elastic Compute Elastic Storage VPN

Dedicated Compute Archive Storage VPN for Dedicated
Compute
Shared File Storage
Fast Connect

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How IaaS Can Help Businesses cut costs Page | 4

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.

Infrastructure Management
IaaS model ofoads all the burden pertaining to Infrastructure setup and
management. Experts at providers end manage, update, reboot, and perform
patching of servers, which evidently offers cost benets. Cost is not the only benet
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 Provisioning

IaaS works on an on-demand basis, enabling clients to immediately provision
computing resources including virtual server space, network connections, rewalls,
bandwidth, and load balancers on an on-need basis. This, in turn, ofoads the cost of
hiring internal staff to buy, install, and congure 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 Provisioning

Overprovisioning and under provisioning of computing resources can have adverse
impacts on companys 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.

Cost savings on hardware / infrastructure 43%

Capacity Management 29%

Disaster recovery / business continuity 23%

Cost savings on IT stafng / administration 19%

Ability to access new skills / capabilities 15%

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

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Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity

The 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 exible
subscription fee.

Unparalleled Expertise
A 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 Needs

Every 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 specic compliance and security needs.

According to Gartners 2015 CIO survey, around 83% of CIOs now

consider IaaS as an infrastructure option

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Business Concerns - IaaS Opportunities

The 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 difculties in managing fragmented
IT resources. Furthermore, many of todays 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 ofoads 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.

Fear to Lag Hefty Capital Complicated

Economic Behind and Operating Infrastructure
Pressure Competition Costs Management

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IaaS Motivation: Factors

The increasing economic uncertainty and business perils are pushing businesses
to bring exible 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

nancial and strategic objectives without sacricing on performance and
incurring hefty outlays.

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

Key Benets 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 Flexibility
IaaS 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 signicant cost savings and allows clients to optimize their IT
investments.

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Greater Scalability
Along with pay-per-use consumption model, IaaS provides businesses a exibility 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 Agility
The 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 SLAs

Most 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.

CIOs consider business continuity and preparing for disaster recovery

the top drivers for adopting IaaS.

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---- Frost & Sullivan

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Consolidated DR Infrastructure
IaaS gives businesses a exibility to work and access resources from anywhere. One
of the strategic benets 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 Growth
IaaS 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 Providers and Enterprise: Job Responsibility

An IaaS Provider Manages

Servers Virtualization Server HW Storage Networking

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Businesses Manage

Applications Runtimes Security Databases

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.
Thats 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 signicant tradeoffs, such as competitive advantage,
operational change, and capex/opex expenses.

Here is a list of questions that businesses should consider when

teaming up with the IaaS vendor:

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SLA
Comprehend 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.

Scalability
Ensure that the service providers facility is equipped with latest technologies,
servers, storage capacities, and networking components to foster your scaling
business needs.

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

Data Backup
Another 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 Options
Ensure 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.

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Scalability SLA

Lock-in NETWORK Migration

Period OPTIONS

Network Data
Options Backup

Conclusion: Flexibility, scalability, and reliability are the three innate characteristics of
cloud computing model. It helps enterprises meet their specic 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 nd 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 inuential 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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