IaaS Providers Compared: How to Choose the Right Infrastructure Partner

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) gives teams access to the resources they need to build, run, and scale products without owning or running physical hardware themselves.

IaaS providers offer many types of services for organizations with different needs. The right fit depends on how much control you need, how much work your team wants to handle, and how your infrastructure needs may change over time.

In this guide, we’ll explain what IaaS is, how different IaaS providers compare, and how to choose the right infrastructure partner for your workloads.

What is infrastructure as a service (IaaS)?

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is a service model where a provider gives customers the basic resources they need to run applications, websites, databases, or workloads, without the customer owning the physical hardware.

IaaS usually includes compute, storage, and networking resources. Some providers offer these resources together as a full infrastructure platform, using cloud environments, dedicated servers, or a mix of both.

Organizations of all sizes use IaaS, from startups to large enterprises. It gives them access to infrastructure that fits their needs without the upfront cost or internal work required to buy and manage physical hardware themselves.

IaaS vs. PaaS. vs. SaaS

IaaS is not the only service model providers use to help customers build and run products.

Two related models, platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS), handle more of the technology stack for the customer. These models usually offer less control over the infrastructure, but they can be easier to adopt and manage.

PaaS gives customers a managed platform for building and deploying applications. The provider manages more of the environment, including the infrastructure, operating system, runtime, scaling, and developer tools. The customer mainly focuses on application code and data.

SaaS gives customers a finished software product. The provider manages almost everything, and the customer simply uses the product instead of building and managing their own.

At a glance, here’s how the three models differ: 

Top IaaS providers: Hyperscalers vs. alternatives

Within the IaaS category, providers that offer full infrastructure platforms can still differ in how they deliver those resources.

Compute, storage, and networking can be packaged in different ways, with different benefits and tradeoffs.

The table below outlines each category of IaaS provider and how they compare.

Hyperscale cloud

In recent years, the most ubiquitous IaaS providers have been the hyperscale cloud providers: Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.

These providers, along with alternative cloud providers like DigitalOcean, Vultr, and Scaleway, are best known for virtualized compute, storage, and networking resources. In this model, the physical hardware is pooled, shared, and accessed through a cloud platform.

Organizations often choose hyperscalers because they offer large service catalogs, easy scaling, global reach, and managed services such as serverless functions, managed databases, and Kubernetes services.

While these platforms can be easy and flexible, they can also introduce drawbacks. Most notably:

Inconsistent performance: Virtualization and shared tenancy can add sources of variability. This can create inconsistent performance, which can be especially detrimental when latency affects user experience.

Unsustainable costs: As usage grows, some workloads can become expensive to run in the cloud. Costs can come from compute premiums, managed service fees, and outbound data transfer fees, also known as egress fees.

When these drawbacks represent serious obstacles, organizations may consider other IaaS models that offer different levels of control, performance, simplicity, and support.

Private cloud

Private cloud gives an organization access to cloud infrastructure dedicated to its own use, rather than shared across many customers in a public cloud environment. This can provide more isolation, customization, and control than public cloud, while still offering cloud-like management.

Some providers help customers deploy and manage private cloud on their own on-premises infrastructure. Others host the private cloud on provider-owned infrastructure.

The increased isolation and control of private cloud can make it a strong fit for organizations with strict security, compliance, or reliability needs. However, private cloud may not be the best answer for teams trying to avoid virtualization overhead. In those cases, dedicated infrastructure may be a better fit.

Self-managed dedicated infrastructure

Self-managed dedicated infrastructure gives customers access to single-tenant physical servers that they configure and manage themselves. The provider maintains the hardware and network, while the customer manages the operating system, applications, and workload setup.

Depending on the provider, these offerings may be referred to as bare metal servers, dedicated servers, bare metal cloud, or Bare Metal as a Service. The terms often overlap.

This model is a good fit for customers with performance-sensitive workloads, because bare metal infrastructure eliminates the virtualization layer that can add variability in latency.

Additionally, for some workloads, particularly those that are always-on or bandwidth-heavy, a migration from cloud to bare metal can result in significant cost savings. 

Managed infrastructure services

Managed infrastructure services shift more operational work to the provider. Instead of only supplying the infrastructure, the provider may help deploy, monitor, and maintain the customer’s environment.

What a provider includes in their managed infrastructure services can vary widely. Some providers focus on managing dedicated infrastructure. Others focus on private cloud, hybrid cloud, or multi-cloud environments. In each case, the provider helps customers run infrastructure while reducing the burden on internal engineering teams.

How to compare IaaS providers

If you’re comparing IaaS options for your organization, the number and variety of services in the market can feel overwhelming.

With a clear understanding of your operational needs, cost requirements, and performance expectations, it becomes easier to narrow your search to the right type of IaaS offering and choose the right provider.

As you evaluate your options, start by defining what you need from a provider in the following areas:

1. Pricing structure and hidden costs

Start by understanding how each provider prices its core resources. Some providers offer predictable monthly pricing, while others charge based on usage.

It’s important to look beyond the cost of compute, because providers may charge separately for other key parts of the infrastructure, including:

• Bandwidth costs, such as data transfer allowances, port speed upgrades, or egress fees

• IP address charges

• Premium support

• Optional managed services your team may need

These can all affect total cost of ownership. The right provider should make it clear what is included, what costs extra, and how your bill may change as usage grows.

2. SLAs and uptime guarantees

Service-level agreements help define the level of availability a provider promises to deliver.

When comparing providers, review the uptime guarantee, what it applies to, how downtime is measured, and what happens if the provider misses its commitment.

It is also worth checking whether the SLA covers the full environment or only certain parts of the service. Compute, storage, networking, and managed services may each be covered differently.

3. Security and compliance certifications

Security needs vary based on your workload, industry, and customer base. You should evaluate how the provider protects its data centers, networks, systems, and customer environments.

For regulated or enterprise environments, compliance certifications may also matter. Depending on your needs, you may want to look for standards such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, or GDPR readiness.

The right provider should be able to explain which protections are in place and which responsibilities remain with the customer.

4. Support model

IaaS providers can vary a lot in how much support they provide. Some are mostly self-service, granting the customer access to everything they need through dashboards, APIs, documentation, and ticket-based support.

Others offer more hands-on help with planning, deployment, troubleshooting, monitoring, and ongoing management.

The right support model depends on how much operational work your team wants to keep in-house. A highly technical team may prefer more control and self-service access. A leaner team may benefit from a provider that can take on more day-to-day infrastructure work.

5. Scalability and integrations

A strong IaaS provider should be able to support both your current needs and future growth. You should evaluate how easily you can add resources, expand to new locations, provision infrastructure, and adjust capacity as demand changes.

Integrations are also important. APIs, Terraform support, and CLI tools can all affect how easily the provider fits into the existing workflows your team uses to manage infrastructure. 

A strong partnership is predicated not only on finding infrastructure that works today, but also on choosing a provider that can continue to support you as workloads grow and needs change.

How Rackdog approaches IaaS

Rackdog is a global bare metal server provider that offers IaaS through dedicated servers and managed infrastructure services. Customers can deploy single-tenant servers with cloud-like provisioning, predictable monthly pricing, and the ability to deploy servers in 12+ global locations.

For teams that want more control, Rackdog offers self-managed dedicated servers. Customers manage the operating system, applications, and workload setup while Rackdog provides the physical servers, network, and platform access.

For teams that need more support, Rackdog can also work directly with customers to build a managed infrastructure services package around their needs. Depending on the environment, this may include help with infrastructure planning, hardware customization, deployment, monitoring, maintenance, migration support, disaster recovery, managed firewalls, or cloud connectivity.

This gives customers a range of options, from self-managed bare metal to more hands-on infrastructure support, depending on how much of the environment they want to manage themselves.

Final takeaway

Today’s IaaS providers offer a wide range of infrastructure models for keeping applications and workloads reliable, cost-efficient, and easier to control.

Choosing the right infrastructure partner starts with understanding your workload needs, how much control your team wants, and what level of support you need from a provider.

For teams that need the consistency and cost-efficiency of dedicated infrastructure, Rackdog offers both self-managed and managed bare metal servers with predictable pricing and cloud-like flexibility. Create an account to start deploying today, or get in touch with an infrastructure expert to explore the right solution for your team.