Top Ten Truths About IT Services from "Infrastructure as a Service" Providers

The October 2012 IaaS Buyer's Guide from Informatio
Week Reports contained a few salient points that IT managers must keep in mind while searching for the right service provider. We already know that the core business of the "Infrastructure as a Service" model revolves around the concept of providing on-demand IT services to consumers without interference or frequent interaction with the network engineers and marketing personnel from the service provider. Consumers basically rent a virtual machine (VM) by the hour or per month. After thorough examination and analysis, many IT experts realized that consumers of InfoTech services from IaaS providers often encounter the following truths:

1. Providers generally offer various rental plans based on the number of CPU cores, the amount of RAM, and the gigabytes of local storage allocated to each VM. Most firms have a virtual machine that runs on a single-core CPU with 1 to 2 GB of memory space and around 100 gigabytes of drive storage.

2. Providers mostly prefer to shuffle their users' data between servers using drive space reserved for local (ephemeral) storage. It costs less to maintain and doesn't consume much resources (CPU and memory). Local storage functions like RAM where data disappears once the VM is turned off.

3. Providers also offer unlimited space for storing files (file-storage-as-a-service), which can be easily accessed via an FTP client. File management is possible without any need for a web application server.

4. Providers that offer block storage or unlimited storage space often choose to limit each user's CPU and RAM usage. This plus-minus deal ensures that majority of consumers continue to receive good network services with greater server stability.

5. Most vendors commonly support Linux-based OS, such as CentOS, Ubuntu, and Red Hat Enterprise. However, many consumers prefer to use virtual machines installed with Windows Server OS.

6. Consumers must pay more for convenience when they choose to rent a specialized VM with ready-to-use software for web content publishing and database server management. These servers are best for quick deployments of web applications in the cloud that won't last for long.

7. Providers that deploy applications through multiple data centers located in different regions have a greater chance at success in data recovery. However, a multi-region or multi-cloud data transfer costs more than in-region transmissions. It takes longer because the data signals have to travel to a farther location than usual. In some cases, a user's files accidentally get lost during migration from one server to another.

8. Some provider offer third-party services that use vendor APIs to hook up with their servers for remote monitoring of the network and the system. Also, most vendors support at least one cloud management platform that facilitates server provisioning, disaster recovery, and multi-cloud deployment.

9. Consumers must be wary about racking up excess charges after going overboard with their bandwidth limit. The choice to go unlimited also poses a risk for getting a very expensive bill. The rate for an unlimited storage service is based on the number of gigabytes that a user currently consumes with his plan. The more drive space that person consumes the costlier it becomes just to keep all that data secure and intact.

10. Most IaaS providers follow more stringent security practices than on-premises server administrators do. These public cloud services already implement the most advanced IT security protocols, such as multifactor authentication, SSAE 16, FIPS 140-2, and PCI DSS Level 1 compliance.

In truth, when it comes to evaluating public and private cloud services that follow the "Infrastructure as a Service" (IaaS) delivery model, even the most experienced among IT professionals at Rgtech.com.au may find themselves at a loss. Determining which among the top IaaS providers offer the most reliable service plans doesn't just come down to comparing the benefits with the costs. The process also involves some detective work to identify the good and bad aspects of a service package.