IaaS is a flexible model of cloud services with simple rules: the consumer receives virtual servers with the necessary capacities, and the provider deals with the “hardware”. It allows users to deploy the IT infrastructure in accordance with actual requests, fully controlling its operation.

The main advantages of the IaaS cloud services model:

• cost reduction for physical infrastructure support;
• the ability to choose how to work with the cloud — you can launch virtual machines with the relevant configuration and add the required number of disks and networks;
• productivity increase for own IT resources and quick preparation of virtual environments for new projects.

Despite the high business demand for such solutions nowadays, the issue whether it is safe to store files in the cloud still remains. To be sure of the virtual data center reliability, choose a provider that guarantees:

• placement of hardware resources in data centers compliant with TIER III fault tolerance level;
• use of the latest virtualization platforms, for example, VMware and OpenStack;
• high degree of information security confirmed by certificates.

Having considered what IaaS is in theory, let's look at specific examples of how to use the cloud for various tasks.

One of the Egersund Seafood stores in Kyiv

Launching a new project

In order to develop a new business product, it is important for the company to focus all resources on it as much as possible. Therefore, the task is to minimize costs without compromising the product functionality. The optimal solution is the virtualization of servers and the possibility to outsource part of the service tasks in order to concentrate on the development of client services. The following successful examples prove it:

Medstar Solutions

When looking for a platform to host the new PACS24 service, the main requirement of the developers was to ensure reliable protection of patient data. Medstar Solutions preferred GigaCloud because the cloud operator met all the requirements.

Thanks to the provider-client cooperation, the PACS24 project was successfully launched, which guarantees reliable storage of patient data, 24-hour access to research with the option to safely share it, and flexible system settings to meet the needs of medical institutions.

Egersund Seafood

Egersund Seafood, a Norwegian fish producer with stores in Ukraine, decided to launch a new website and mobile application. When choosing which cloud is better to use, the customer had two requirements: the provider's equipment must be located in Ukraine, and the support system must work around the clock. They opted out for the VMware-based GigaCloud public cloud, where the website and application were transferred to.

The result did not have to wait long — the services started working without failure. And thanks to the flexible configuration of the VMware platform, it is possible to quickly increase the amount of technical resources for opening new stores or during seasonal overloads.

EKO-market chain store

Business scaling

If the company is determined to develop rapidly, an increase in the IT infrastructure cannot be done without. The business will face a choice whether to modernize its own data center or switch to cloud platforms.

The first option loses when it comes to cost. It is necessary not only to allocate funds and attract specialists when the business load increases, but also to suffer losses when traffic decreases. After all, it is necessary to maintain the excessive hardware all the time so that there are no failures in its further work. Instead, cloud services are an opportunity to gradually build up the IT infrastructure, using exactly as much capacity as is needed in a specific period. For example, as in these cases:

EKO-market

When space was needed for testing the next EKO-market service, and there were no free servers left, IT specialists had to decide: to invest in new “hardware” or to choose IaaS? In order to facilitate scaling in the future, the second option was picked — IT services that ran out of space on the company’s servers were transferred to the GigaCloud cloud storage.

What this solution brought: flexible resource management, scaling without additional money and time spent, as well as optimization of the IT department operation.

Retail Group

When the development pace of the Retail Group accelerated, the physical data center no longer covered the growing demands of the business. And it took a lot of money to support it. That's why Retail Group brought almost 70% of its network infrastructure to the cloud.

The migration made it possible to reduce equipment downtime, ensure the rapid service expansion, and start planning the full transfer of the retailer's offline platforms to the cloud.

Caparol Ukraine office

Protection against unforeseen circumstances

Cloud technologies are able to solve business and public sector issues during a force majeure. Perhaps the biggest challenge for our clients was the war. At times when it is necessary to resume work as quickly as possible, the cloud supports critical services: from banking to manufacturing, from public informing about the danger to post-shelling rebuilding. Here are some examples:

balbek bureau

When the blackout started in October 2022 due to damage done to the infrastructure by russian missiles, the architects of balbek bureau were unable to use the Archicad design program hosted on their own server. The company is engaged in social projects for the reconstruction of Ukraine and has foreign clients, so being unable to launch the program, the entire architectural bureau stopped.

Upon the transition to the cloud, balbek bureau architects work from different parts of Ukraine and Europe — all it takes is internet access to solve common problems. Only backup copies of data are stored on their own server, and the cloud completely covers all daily tasks.

EasyPay

EasyPay customers make 350,000 daily transactions, paying for utilities and state services, online services, tickets, fines, etc. The business signs an SLA with its partners and bears financial responsibility in case of downtime. Therefore, fault tolerance against any issues is critically important for EasyPay.

The company decided to back up its data in the cloud. Thus, all main services are stored on servers in data centers, and backup copies of the website, applications, services, databases, etc. are placed in an isolated private cloud. There is constant synchronization between the “gear” and the cloud space, which makes them almost completely interchangeable in case of losing one of these options. The platform was deployed already in the midst of hostilities — it took 20 days to set up the system and migrate data.

EasyPay terminal

Hardware rundown

Sometimes IaaS is not just profitable, but an inevitable alternative to physical servers. In particular, when the gear is so old that it is not economically profitable to regularly renew it. Thanks to the cloud, this problem was solved in the following two cases:

JSC «Naftogaz of Ukraine»

The IT infrastructure of Naftogaz JSC was located on its own physical servers, which were difficult to modernize due to their age. Therefore, the company decided to consider migration to virtual storage. GigaCloud offered the company a private cloud — an isolated virtual infrastructure that has the highest level of security.

The migration made it possible to reduce the risks associated with the breakdown of outdated equipment and to increase the level of IT services in continuous operation.

Caparol Ukraine

When it was yet another time to update equipment at Caparol Ukraine, the company reckoned: regularly upgrading “hardware” is more expensive than using cloud services. Therefore, first the databases were transferred, and then the company completely switched to cloud technologies.

From their own experience, Caparol Ukraine has made sure that the cloud saves costs, insures the risks of equipment failures and allows you to be mobile in your decisions. And it also increases the efficiency of the IT specialists work, because it frees them from the need to maintain outdated “hardware”.

ALT Ukraine office

Compliance with legal requirements

According to legal regulations, companies working with user data are obliged to ensure their reliable protection. This requires significant financial costs and organizational changes. It is much easier to use services that already meet all the requirements in terms of information protection. Let's make sure it works with these two stories:

Prozorro

In 2018, the Prozorro system, conforming to the law, migrated from Amazon Web Service to the Ukrainian data center. Then the company decided that for maximum security, it should involve another cloud operator. To increase the fault tolerance of the GigaCloud system, the client was offered an isolated private cloud on the OpenStack platform and won an open tender.

Thanks to this, Prozorro has distributed server capacity to guarantee the stability and security of the public procurement system.

ALT Ukraine

In 2019, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine strengthened the cybersecurity requirements for critical infrastructure facilities. Therefore, the medical information systems that fall into such category required the construction of a comprehensive system of information protection (CSIP). ALT Ukraine, the developer of MIS «EMCIMED», was faced with a choice — either to build its own data center and conduct a compliance audit, or to migrate to the cloud with CSIP.

Working together, GigaCloud and ALT Ukraine specialists implemented MIS «EMCIMED» in the public cloud with CSIP and confirmed its compliance with legal requirements at the shortest notice possible.

IaaS actually proves its stability, reliability, and convenience. Therefore, it is unsurprising that more and more companies are interested in how to connect the cloud and choose it as a profitable alternative to conservative “gear”.