IaaS vs. CaaS

Over the years, cloud computing has evolved to be the most viable solution for modern businesses because of the many benefits the technology offers. Cost efficiency, quality control, enhanced collaboration, and security are just a few of the numerous benefits of cloud computing. However, to get the best results, you must select the cloud computing platform that aligns with your business needs.

Container as a Service (CaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) are among the leading cloud computing models today. Most business owners find it challenging to understand these cloud computing models. This article focuses on comparing and contrasting CaaS vs. IaaS so you can select the service that aligns with your business needs.

Virtual Machines vs. Containers

The key to understanding these two computing models is first to appreciate the differences between Containers and Virtual Machines (VM). 

Virtual Machines use Hypervisors, which require an operating system for each VM should. In contrast to VM, containers would share the same operating system. While this difference seems minute, it can have a significant impact on performance.

IaaS vs. CaaS | Comparison

What is an IaaS?

Infrastructure as a Service companies provide customers with the cloud infrastructure they need to achieve their objectives. Most vendors would allow the clients to select a data center of their choice among the available locations. 

The clients would need to connect through the Internet to access the infrastructure to host their website, hosts app, use storage, or execute business logic. Interestingly, the IaaS cloud model allows users to perform similar actions as they would with on-premise infrastructure. So, businesses can enjoy access to top-notch infrastructure for agile apps deployment without making the massive investment to acquire them.

The Advantages of IaaS

You Trade Capital Expenses for Operating Expenses

Going through the IaaS routes means avoiding substantial capital investment in acquiring infrastructure. Instead, the business would pay the IaaS vendor recurrent fees for using their infrastructure. This approach negates the need for intermittent upgrades, network management, and server maintenance. So, the benefits here are convenience and saving costs.

Scalability

With IaaS, a business would not have to bother about infrastructure resources upgrades. The vendor takes care of automatic resource scaling when the need arises. So, when the need arises, users can access more storage, processor power, and the latest technology without lifting a finger.

Highly Reliable

Most IaaS vendors promise the highest uptime guaranty in the industry. Below are a few of them that guarantees 99.99% uptimes. This promise means the maximum downtime would not exceed one hour in a year.

Minimal Initial Cost

Since there is no need to acquire expensive server hardware and software, the initial cost of establishing a cloud presence is minimal. Moreover, the IaaS company takes care of the server maintenance and scalability when the need arises.

Flexibility

Modern-day businesses are dynamic, and they need to access data quickly and on the go. The IaaS cloud service provides the cloud infrastructure that allows businesses to access their data/apps anytime and anywhere.

The Top Three IaaS Providers

Below is the list of top three Infrastructure as a Service provider in the world today.

AWS

Amazon Web Services, also known as (AWS), offers top-notch IaaS service that is easy to use, reliable, and scalable. Many businesses around the world prefer AWS for the platform’s reliability, cost-efficiency, and scalability.

Azure

Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing service. It started operations in 2010 and has more than 160 physical data centers spread out around the globe.

Google Cloud Platform – GCP

The cloud service provided by Google is called Google Cloud Platform (GCP). The IaaS is based on the same cloud infrastructure used by the popular Gmail and the Google search engine. Users get access to a wide variety of cloud computing, storage, and analytics features.

What is a CaaS – Container as a Service?

Container as a Service, which is commonly called CaaS refers to the cloud computing model that uses container-type virtualization. CaaS vendors often provide clients with a web interface and APIs to manage their container processes. This type of cloud service is excellent for building and running container-based applications on the cloud. 

Businesses and developers leverage CaaS resources to create container-based apps on the cloud or on-site datacenters. CaaS gives users access to perform computing tasks such as stopping, resuming, uploading, streamlining, and scaling applications, clusters, and containers.

The Advantages of a CaaS

Cost-Efficiency

Compared to VM, it takes fewer computer resources to get a container up and running. This resource-efficiency allows users to run several containers within a single server.  This results in lesser data center bills, bare metal costs, and hardware for container-based cloud solutions. The possibility of technical issues and the cost of maintenance is also reduced significantly.

Seamless Horizontal Scaling

With a container-based cloud infrastructure, a user can perform horizontal scaling seamlessly by merely increasing the number of identical containers in the same machine. The scaling features allow users to minimize costs by increasing the number of containers only when needed.

Enhanced Security

Apps running on CaaS cloud structure enjoy enhanced security due to the isolated state of containers within a machine. Therefore, when an application in a container has issues, it would not affect an app’s performance in another container. Also, the processes of an app running within a container are wholly isolated from the operating system.

Flexible Execution Environment

 A container is equipped with everything an app needs to run optimally, including its config files. This portability makes it easy to switch the execution environment without hassles, making it an excellent option for private and public app launches.

Time-Efficiency

The Overall time required to create, replicate, or destroy a container is lightning fast. Therefore, development time on CaaS is quick, expediting time to the market, bug fixing, and the release of software updates. All these overall features enhance the customer experience.

Development Efficiency

The users of CaaS-based infrastructure enjoy streamlined development because application execution in a container simulates the apps built locally. So, issues of inconsistencies in the execution environment do not arise. Also, testing, debugging, and updates of apps are more efficient with container apps.

The Top Three CaaS Providers

Oracle Container Cloud Service

It’s an open-source solution available on Oracle’s Cloud. It’s a managed service that includes a scalable Kubernetes engine.

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

This is a Google-backed service for deployment, management, and scaling of container-based apps.  As you would expect, Kubernetes Engine runs on Google infrastructure and contains several servers in a cluster.

Amazon EC2 Container Service

Amazon EC2 Container offers developers a managed service that supports Docker containers.  It supports the execution of distributed apps on the managed Amazon EC2 instance clusters.

Conclusion

At this point, you would have understood the differences between Container as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service. IaaS offers Virtual Machines (VMs) to users, helping them host and scale apps seamlessly without the need to acquire any hardware. A container as a Service company provides managed services for running containers; it’s an excellent choice for horizontal scaling, portability, and enhanced app security.

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