Infrastructure as a Service

IaaS can be described as a service that provides virtual abstractions for hardware, servers, and networking components. The service provider owns all of the equipment and is responsible for its housing, running, and maintenance. In this case, AWS provides Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), SDKs, and a web console for creating and modifying virtual machines; their network components; routers; gateways; subnets; load balancers; and much more. Where a user with a physical data center would incur charges for the hardware, power, and connectivity, this is removed by IaaS with a payment model that's per-hour (or per-use). Specific IaaS components will be the building blocks for our product. A discussion of the key pieces will take place in Chapter 2, Core Services - Building Blocks for Your Product.