One of the most daunting obstacles that digital businesses (or businesses in the process of going digital) must face is the creation of a complex, competent and stable infrastructure for their services to run on (be they many or few).
It’s an expensive prospect, and often a gamble, to have a go at this on your own. You may succeed, but without professional help, it’ll cost a lot of blood, sweat and tears to make it happen. Thankfully, modern technology has brought about many great infrastructure as a service providers.
Iaas is a little different than SaaS, but the concept behind them is the same. Infrastructure as a service providers offer cloud-based digital constructs (via subscription) upon which other businesses may set up their websites or run their services. These services work on top of a solid foundation. Iaas spares you a ‘reinvention of the wheel.’ Not to mention the lower expense in the long run.
You might be surprised that some of these IaaS providers are actually familiar names:
#1 – Amazon Web Services
Yeah, you read that right. Amazon, one of the pioneers of ecommerce, has made quite a name for themselves in providing a powerful widely-accessible cloud computing and infrastructure program. Amazon is scalable for multiple needs; I’ve seen this infrastructure used quite diversely to support experimental cloud gaming systems, as well as shared super-computing for business calculations and logistics charting. Amazon’s more solid infrastructure models support custom web storefronts, backlinking systems and even host frameworks for all kinds of flexible SaaS designs.
Amazon isn’t just a marketplace anymore!
#2 – AT&T
AT&T has had their naysayers over the years (often for good reasons) but they’ve shaped up. The negative press pertained to issues involving dialup internet and telecommunications – before the mobile and broadband revolutions came into full swing.
That technology is history. There’s nothing bad to say about their cloud computing services, which offer the most unique new forms of programming, procedures and logical technologies, most notably– synaptic modular components. Not only does AT&T double the tabular lookup speeds for comparative programming, but it triples efficiency all around; this company makes stability in shared cloud computing pretty darn practical.
#3 – BlueLock
This provider is a little different. BlueLock approaches cloud computing through virtualization and parallel threading. What does this mean, exactly? Well, they create an emulation layer in which the cloud computing infrastructures exists; this promotes stability and prevents system failures in the event that the cores are overstressed. It also allows for a level of managed computing that’s not as practical with direct hardware usage.
This feature costs BlueLock a little bit of speed and power versus AT&T or Amazon, but the stability and flexibility you get is something worth looking into – before you jump to a decision.
#4 – CloudScaling
CloudScaling is more of a rival of AT&T. (AT&T – watch your backs). They offer a unique architecture with interlinked modules similar but not identical to the synaptic architecture that AT&T uses.
CloudScaling takes a different approach; they use groupings rather than multi-directional interlinks. The advantage to this is the capability to split, resize and merge as many massive cloud infrastructures is possible, live, at any point with this system. If you need innovative, efficient computing that’s massively scalable, give this one a try.
Infrastructure as a service providers are now highly sought after, and the companies that I’ve listed are among the best out there. Of course, as time goes on a number of competitors and more innovative ideas will surface, so keep a lookout for future updates!