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IaaS

  • Glossary

「IaaS」

This glossary explains various keywords that will help you understand the mindset necessary for data utilization and successful DX.
This time, we will explain the term "IaaS," which was coined at the beginning of the cloud era, and through it, we will think about the essence of IT utilization in the cloud era.

What is IaaS?

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) is a service that provides IT infrastructure such as virtual machines and networks via the Internet.
This service allows you to quickly secure the hardware resources required to build and use an IT system, eliminating the need to own your own hardware. This makes it possible to build a system with lower initial costs, shorter lead time, and greater flexibility than before.

The story leading up to IaaS

Software always runs on hardware, and any data stored on it is always stored on hardware storage devices. This has never changed.

The days when hardware was self-manufactured

For example, in the 20th century, when using an IT system, it was almost a given that you had to procure the necessary hardware. Introducing IT also meant introducing hardware. In the mainframe era, there was even a time when the IT business itself was about selling hardware, with software being just a bonus.

Although software later became a more important element, the situation continued in which hardware was first required to utilize IT.

The expensive hardware we prepared was carefully managed and operated in a server room. We used air conditioning to prevent the temperature from getting too high, we made sure that data and hardware would not be damaged in power outages, and of course we also provided our own physical security. If the hardware broke down, we had to replace it. We also needed engineers to handle these operations.

Fully managed buildings where hardware can be safely stored are now available as "data centers," but even when using these, it is still necessary to secure engineers to prepare and operate the hardware.

In other words, there was a time when using IT systems required a lot of effort and cost in addition to the software itself.

Rental server

When the Internet began to spread, "rental servers," businesses that rented out hardware via the Internet, became widely used. Sakura Internet, which is now one of the largest companies in Japan in this field, was founded in 1996.
*Note: Sakura Internet now also offers IaaS services.

As the internet became more and more widespread, servers became available at lower prices than before, without the need to own one, and this led to their use by individuals and small businesses to build websites and develop web applications. This was a change that made hardware to run software available quickly and at low cost.

However, for full-scale professional use, such as IT systems that support corporate activities, it was common to operate on one's own hardware. Even with rental servers, the effort of managing and operating the server software was still required.

IaaS

Here is a quick summary of the advantages over traditional software.

Amazon EC2, a representative IaaS service, has been available since 2006. It has been around since the dawn of AWS and can be said to be the service that made the first step towards its current great success.

The difference between rental servers and IaaS is that IaaSprovides hardware resources in a highly abstract form, such as virtual machines. However, even at the beginning, it was difficult to understand how this differed from traditional rental servers or owning your own hardware. However, IaaS has since brought about disruptive changes in the world of IT infrastructure.

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the potential for digital disruption in all fields, and the importance of programming skills. I will now explain how IaaS has changed the landscape, but this can also be seen as an example of such a transformation occurring in a particular field.

IaaS revolutionizes IT infrastructure

At first, IaaS seemed like just a service provided as a virtual machine, but it later brought about a major change that overturned conventional wisdom about IT and changed the way we think about IT systems.

The way we create safety and security has changed

If you create an IT system for business purposes, system failures are a problem. However, accidents will inevitably occur due to hardware failures. Therefore, in the past, systems were created using expensive, highly reliable hardware for professionals, and systems were further multiplied to deal with this.

For example, if systems A and B are constructed, and if a problem occurs with system A, operation is immediately switched to system B, and engineers rush to the scene even in the middle of the night or during a typhoon to restore system A. After the time-consuming restoration work, systems A and B are restored to a safe operating state.

However, IaaS, for example AWS, recommends a different approach. First, instead of expensive, break-proof hardware, they use inexpensive hardware that is assumed to break occasionally. They also take measures by using multiplexing, but when system A goes down due to a failure, they actually discard A without restoring it. Instead, they start up a new system C and restore it. Basically, when a failure occurs, hardware resources such as storage and load balancers are discarded without being restored.

This is a concept unique to the cloud, where resources are provided virtually and can be used immediately upon request. In addition to disaster prevention measures, it is also possible to quickly increase the number of virtual machines to respond to sudden increases in user numbers, and to reduce usage costs by stopping virtual machines during periods of low usage. However, this has meant that a change in thinking has been required, where systems are designed with a cloud-native mindset, assuming that "any machine could fail and stop at any time."

This approach was not possible if you owned your own hardware in the past. You couldn't just throw away a server if it malfunctioned, and it was impossible to have a newly purchased physical server arrive and be ready to use in five minutes. Around 2010, this new way of thinking began to gain recognition, with a certain shock.

Infrastructure as Code（IaC）

When using hardware, switching servers requires manual labor. However, with virtualized resources, no physical labor is required. Isolating a failed server and preparing and configuring a new server can all be done with just a few operations on the screen.

If physical work is not required, then there is no need for humans to do it in the first place. The necessary hardware resources are virtualized and can be called up as needed. By writing the procedures for automatically detecting server failures and the tasks to be performed on the IT infrastructure after detection as "code," the work that server administrators do when a failure occurs can now be fully automated.

When this happens, a world that was previously impossible will begin to become a reality.

Managing operations at the hardware level is difficult even for a few dozen servers, and even managing operations at the software level is no easy feat for hundreds of servers. However, now that everything from securing hardware resources to operating them can be written in code, even complex operational tasks for a large number of servers can be accomplished by a small number of people.

Furthermore, even infrastructure that previously required a full-scale IT infrastructure and extensive operation by numerous infrastructure engineers can now be realized and operated automatically just by writing code. For example, it is no longer so difficult to operate with a minimal server configuration on a regular basis, and then automatically detect when usage load increases and start up a large number of servers to operate as a huge service.

The above is just a small part of the transformation that has taken place. Other changes include managed services (services that you can use without having to operate them yourself), the emergence of microservices using container technology, and the emergence of serverless or FaaS, which are creating a new world that is far removed from the operation of traditional hardware.

⇒ The article on "Managed Services" can be found here.

⇒ The article on "Serverless (FaaS)" can be found here.

The essence of this change is that IT infrastructure, which is no longer a physical object due to virtualization,can now be written as code, just like software. This change is sometimes called"Infrastructure asCode."​

Prepare for the "Age of Code" with No-Code/Low-Code

These days, we hear a lot about DX and digital transformation. Some people may think, "So what, it's just digital?" or "The essence hasn't changed, everyone is making a fuss about superficial things." While there are certainly some parts of this that are true, it wouldn't be surprising if something similar to IaaS in IT infrastructure were to occur in all sorts of fields in the future.

These days, it's said that programming skills (the ability to write your intentions as code) will be important in the future, and if you imagine a similar revolution occurring in a field related to you, you'll understand why. It makes sense if we're heading towards a future where everything is program code.

In the coming age, it would be better for everyone to have programming skills. However, it is also true that it would be excessive and exaggerated for everyone to write Python code in their actual work.

What can be used in this situation are the "no-code" and "low-code" tools that have also been popular recently, as well as traditional tools such as Exceland kintone. It would be a good idea to use these as a way for each person to demonstrate their programming skills.

With no-code/low-code, we can also use IaaS

Let's take IaaS, for example. Creating a full-scale IT infrastructure using AWS is probably beyond the reach of most people. However, if you want to reduce costs and prevent unauthorized use by starting up a server containing your department's business applications before work starts and shutting it down at the end of the day, it's something that many people can easily do.

No-code tools, e.g. GUIConnect to a wide variety of systems and data simply by operating the above iPaaS By using this, you can utilize IaaS without writing source code. It may be difficult for infrastructure engineers to build a full-scale IT infrastructure using IaaS, but instead, it becomes possible to integrate with a wide variety of resources, not just IaaS, and automate processes.

Rather than mastering the creation offull-scale IT infrastructure usingIaaS, many people in the workplace would likely see a more advanced approach to being able to create a system that notifies them on Slack that a server has started, orto read a server startup schedule created on kintone and start and shut down the system accordingly​. It could even be said that it is superior for deeply building the needs of the workplace "as code." The "future where everything is code," as has happened with IaaS, is closer than we might think.

Related keywords (for further understanding)

  • On-Premises
    • This is a system in which the hardware that makes up an IT system is installed in a location under the company's control and the system is operated under the company's own management. Even in this age of cloud computing, it is often necessary to use it in conjunction with on-premise systems, and it is required to use it in a way that is well combined with the cloud.
  • SaaS
    • When people generally think of the "cloud," they are referring to an initiative to provide software usage as a service.
  • PaaS
    • This refers to the effort to provide a platform as a service. It is sometimes confused with SaaS and IaaS because it is difficult to understand the difference.
  • FaaS (Serverless)
    • This refers to the IT usage environment on the cloud, which is one of the achievements of IT infrastructure abstraction through the cloud and has evolved to the point where program code can be executed without being aware of the existence of the IT infrastructure.
  • iPaaS
    • A cloud service that "connects" various clouds with external systems and data simply by operating on a GUI.
  • XaaS (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, etc.)
    • This book explains the essence of "service-based services," a major change brought about by the cloud era. This trend will change not only IT but the world in the future. IaaS can be considered a type of this trend.
  • EAI
    • It is a concept of "connecting" systems by data integration, and is a means of freely connecting various data and systems. It is a concept that has been active long before the cloud era as a way to effectively utilize IT.

Are you interested in "iPaaS" and "connecting" technologies?

Try out our products that allow you to freely connect various data and systems, such as IT systems and the cloud, and successfully utilize IT.

The ultimate "connecting" tool: data integration software "DataSpider" and data integration platform "HULFT Square"

"DataSpider," data integration tool developed and sold by our company, is a "connecting" tool with a long history of success. "HULFT Square," a data integration platform, is a "connecting" cloud service developed using DataSpider technology.

Another feature is that development can be done using only the GUI (no code) without writing code like in regular programming, so business staff who have a good understanding of their company's business can take the initiative to use it.

Try outDataSpider/ HULFT Square 's "connecting" technology:

There are many simple collaboration tools available on the market, but this tool can be used with just a GUI and is easy enough for even non-programmers to use, while still providing "high development productivity" and "full-fledged performance that can serve as the foundation for business (professional use)."

It can smoothly solve the problem of "connecting disparate systems and data" that is hindering successful IT utilization. We offer a free trial version and online seminars where you can try it out for free, so we hope you will give it a try.


Why not try a PoC to see if HULFT Squarecan transform your business?

Why not try verifying how "connecting" can be utilized in your business, the feasibility of solving problems using data integration, and the benefits that can be obtained?

  • I want to automate data integration with SaaS, but I want to confirm the feasibility of doing so.
  • We want to move forward with data utilization, but we have issues with system integration
  • I want to consider data integration platform to achieve DX.

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