Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
What IaaS is, what you manage vs the provider, and how it shows up on AZ-900-style questions.
Learning objectives
Work through each idea below. Use Listen to hear the explanation — pick a voice next to Listen anytime (Sophia is the default).
What IaaS is
Infrastructure as a Service gives you the building blocks of a datacenter in the cloud: virtual machines, disks, virtual networks, and related infrastructure. You choose the OS, install middleware, and manage applications, while the provider owns the physical hosts, racks, power, and cooling.
What you manage versus the provider
IaaS is the most flexible of the common service models and the closest to traditional on-premises VMs—but without buying servers. You still patch guest operating systems, configure firewalls inside your VMs, and own application security. That tradeoff matters on the exam: more control means more responsibility.
Azure IaaS examples and when to use it
Typical Azure IaaS examples include Azure Virtual Machines, Virtual Machine Scale Sets, and the networking and storage attached to them. When a scenario says you need full OS control or lift-and-shift of existing servers, think IaaS first. Compared with PaaS and SaaS, IaaS offers the most flexibility and the most customer management.