IaaS is one of the forms of cloud computing service, other than SaaS and PaaS. IaaS itself stands for Infrastructure as a Service. Just like the name suggests, IaaS is the type of cloud computing service that provide infrastructures. The infrastructures offered by an IaaS provider is available in the virtual form. IaaS often becomes a choice of startup companies who want to release certain app or service since the the adoption of IaaS can reduce the upfront outlay on infrastructure.

Let’s say you want to release a certain online app/services within few months from now. Your product is completely ready to run, but you have no decent infrastructures yet. In this case, the infrastructures you need usually server — which can consists of several servers — and internet connection. You need servers to host your apps, while internet, you need it to make your product accessible by public. Normally, you can buy a set of server computers and put them on data center. However, this option requires you to spend much capital upfront.

Rather than spending too much capital upfront on leasing space in an expensive data center, you can rent space in a virtual data center from an IaaS provider. In addition to helping you minimize the upfront capital, adopting IaaS means you don’t need to deal with technical aspects like hardware installation and bandwidth. The adoption of IaaS can help you reduce the upfront capital since you don’t need to buy a set of physical server computers and hire technicians to maintain them. In the concept of IaaS, you only need to pay for the resources you use. IaaS providers typically apply monthly subscriptions as the payment method. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure and the examples of popular Iaas Providers.

Each IaaS provider can offer different services. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for instance. This IaaS provider offers a wide range of virtual servers from database, storage, CDN, DNS and so on. Today, most startup companies rely on IaaS with the reasons like mentioned above.