In the era before cloud computing, upgrading RAM or CPU in a data center meant physically shutting down servers, opening chassis, inserting memory modules, and rebooting. The process triggered downtime, required capital expenditure, and demanded manual maintenance.
With Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) on Cloud platform, these tasks are automated with a few clicks. You no longer need to worry about hardware upgrades, physical configurations, security, or the ongoing maintenance of a traditional server farm.
A classic example of IaaS on Google Cloud is Compute Engine. It allows you to spin up virtual machines with specific configurations — such as RAM, number of CPUs, and storage — based on your requirements. The ability to scale up or down quickly is the biggest benefit of IaaS. In contrast to a traditional data center, where any scaling requires exhaustive planning, downtime, and significant capital outlay, IaaS makes scaling not just simple, but automatable.
A snapshot of google console shows the options google provides to configure VMs
Typically,
1. vCPUs & Memory (RAM): Define compute power and performance.
2. Operating System: Choose between Linux or Windows Server.
3. Storage Type: Persistent Disk for durability or Local SSDs for high performance.
4. Machine Type Family: Standard, high-memory, or high-CPU.
5. Region & Zone: Deploy VMs closer to your users for reduced latency.
These parameters give businesses complete flexibility to customize their cloud infrastructure without downtime.
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