Taking The Fog Out Of Cloud Computing: Infrastructure-As-A-Service

Some of the most compelling cloud computing stories are public infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) stories: stories of companies using many servers for a short time and charging that use to a credit card, saving tons of money. When the dynamics of a business scenario are a good match for IaaS's characteristics, the benefits can be substantial. IaaS is not right for every situation — a wide range of considerations affect IaaS costs and benefits — but you should add IaaS options to your computing infrastructure strategy. Viewing IaaS as one of a range of hosted infrastructure options and matching IaaS with your business scenarios will establish a strong foundation for navigating the vagaries and complexities of IaaS pricing, risks, technical requirements, security concerns, and variability among vendor offerings.