Our enterprise is evaluating IaaS for a significant cloud migration of existing VMware workloads using a lift and shift strategy. I understand IaaS provides the basic computing resources, but what precisely are the core building blocks—like compute, storage, and networking—that the cloud provider manages? Crucially, where does the management responsibility shift, and how does the greater control in IaaS benefit our organization's specific security and compliance needs compared to using a PaaS offering?
3 answers
The core components of IaaS provided by the cloud vendor are the physical data center, servers, network hardware, and the virtualization layer (hypervisor). The customer is given virtual access to compute (VMs, containers, bare metal), storage (block, file, object), and networking (VPC, firewalls, load balancers). The fundamental difference from PaaS is the level of control: in IaaS, the customer retains full management of the operating system (OS), middleware, runtime, application, and data. This high level of control is crucial for meeting stringent regulatory security and compliance requirements (like HIPAA or PCI DSS) that demand complete control over the OS and its configurations, which is not possible with the vendor-managed stack in PaaS.
Since the customer manages the OS in IaaS, what are the best practices for maintaining consistent patch management and system configuration across potentially hundreds of virtual machines to avoid configuration drift and maintain a strong security posture?
IaaS provides the foundational compute, storage, and networking (the virtualized hardware). The customer manages everything from the operating system up, providing maximum control and flexibility, which is necessary for complex cloud migration scenarios like a lift and shift of legacy systems or applications with specific compliance needs.
This model also makes disaster recovery and business continuity planning very effective, as you can easily replicate the entire infrastructure stack (VMs and network configuration) to a geographically distinct cloud region provided by the IaaS vendor.
The key to efficient OS management in IaaS is Cloud Orchestration and automation tools like Terraform or Ansible. These tools allow you to define your system configuration as code, enabling repeatable, automated deployment and patching of the OS, middleware, and applications across all your compute instances. By integrating these tools into your CI/CD pipeline, you minimize manual errors, enforce the desired state, and significantly enhance your overall Cyber Security and governance compliance.