Dictionary · Certification Terminology
Infrastructure as a Service
IaaS — Infrastructure as a Service
Cloud and virtualization · Intermediate
A cloud model that rents fundamental resources such as virtual machines, networks, and storage. You manage the operating system and everything above it.
The provider runs the building and the physical hosts. You patch the guest operating system and configure the application. It is the closest cloud model to a traditional server.
Example: A company rents a virtual machine, chooses Linux, and remains responsible for packages, firewall rules, and backups of its data.
Common misconception
- The provider patching its physical hosts does not patch your guest operating system for you.