What is IaaS and how it benefits your company

IaaS (infrastructure as a service) means that a company rents servers, storage and networking from a provider, instead of buying and maintaining its own equipment. You pay only for the resources you use, and the provider takes care of the hardware and the data center.

IaaS lets companies use the entire IT infrastructure of a provider of such services, without major headaches.

Let’s say your company needs a file server, a server for its accounting application or ERP, and one for its database. How about renting the entire infrastructure from an IaaS provider? (For email, most companies today use services such as Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, not a server of their own.)

What are the benefits of IaaS for a company?

• you no longer buy servers: you pay monthly for the resources you use (processor, memory, storage, traffic);
• the infrastructure is easy to scale: if the company’s needs grow, the allocated resources can be increased very quickly, and if they shrink, you pay less;
• the provider takes care of the hardware, the power supply, cooling and the physical security of the data center;
• the infrastructure is configured so that hardware failures have minimal impact on your work, and for more serious situations there are disaster recovery services, which can save you a lot of headaches;
• servers can be accessed securely from anywhere, for example over a VPN connection.

IaaS providers usually offer 24/7 technical support and can be reached through a ticketing platform. These platforms let you open incidents, which the provider’s engineers then process and resolve.

What remains your company’s responsibility?

The IaaS provider makes the servers available to you, makes sure they run continuously and sends you alerts if something fails, but beyond that, your company has full control over the operating systems, platforms and applications running on the servers. This is the “shared responsibility model,” which all the major cloud providers apply.

That means the company still needs someone to:

• manage the servers: updates, accounts and access rights;
• set up backup: most providers don’t automatically back up the data on rented servers;
• handle security: firewall, VPN access, two-step verification, monitoring.

Since IaaS providers only monitor, secure and manage the infrastructure from a hardware standpoint, you need an IT services provider to implement and manage the solutions your company needs. There’s also a managed option, in which the provider takes over server administration as well.

Managed cloud: tell me more →

How much does IaaS cost?

Rented infrastructure is usually paid for monthly, based on usage (pay-as-you-go). If you commit for one or three years, the major providers offer significant discounts through so-called reserved instances. Watch out, though, for the less visible costs: data traffic leaving the cloud, backup storage and software licenses.

What should you check before choosing an IaaS provider?

The best-known IaaS providers are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, but there are also local providers with data centers in Romania. Before you choose, check:

• where the data is stored: a data center in the European Union makes GDPR compliance simpler;
• what the contract guarantees (SLA): availability, response time and compensation in the event of an outage;
• whether backup is included or paid for separately;
• the provider’s certifications, for example ISO/IEC 27001;
• how easy it is to leave: since September 12, 2025, the EU Data Act has applied, requiring cloud providers to let you move your data to another provider, and from January 12, 2027, they can no longer charge switching fees, with minor exceptions.

If you’re wondering which option suits you, also read local server or cloud server: pros and cons and infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

RezolvIT is an IT outsourcing company that supports the companies it works with, from IT infrastructure and IT security to employees working from home.