Infrastructure as a Service

• Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is the most flexible type of cloud services, as it provides you the maximum amount of control for your cloud resources.
• In an IaaS model, the cloud provider is responsible for maintaining the hardware, network connectivity (to the internet), and physical security.
• You’re responsible for everything else: operating system installation, configuration, and maintenance; network configuration; database and storage configuration; and so on.
• With IaaS, you’re essentially renting the hardware in a cloud datacenter, but what you do with that hardware is up to you.

Shared Responsibility Model

• IaaS places the largest share of responsibility with you.
• The cloud provider is responsible for maintaining the physical infrastructure and its access to the internet.
• You’re responsible for installation and configuration, patching and updates, and security.

Scenarios

• Lift-and-shift migration: You setup up cloud resources similar to your on-premises datacenter, and then simply moving the things running on-premises to run on the IaaS infrastructure.
• Testing and development: You can stand up (start) or shut down the different environments (development, testing) rapidly with an IaaS structure, while maintaining complete control.