Cloud Services

There are times when organizations want or need alternatives to managing their own infrastructure, but public clouds may be deemed inappropriate or inadequate for the needs of a business. For instance, there might be security or regulatory concerns related to the use of a public cloud environment, and the potential risk of hosting a mission-critical workload and/or data in the public cloud might exceed an organization’s risk tolerance.  There might also be concerns that a public cloud would not be able to meet the required level of availability or uptime that an organization needs or may be too expensive. 

In these cases, an alternative is the Private Cloud, which realizes the benefits of cloud computing, while maintaining total control and ownership of the environment.  Access is restricted to the core users, which typically includes organization employees and associated business partners and vendors.   

The Division of Information Systems (DIS) offers Private Cloud services to its customers that include: 

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) 

• Platform as a Service (PaaS) 

Infrastructure As A Service (IAAS)

Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas) is a form of cloud computing that provides virtualized computing resources.  The cloud provider hosts, manages, and maintains IT infrastructure such as storage, server and networking resources, and delivers them to their customers through the use of virtual machines. The customer manages their applications and data within those virtual machines and only pays for what is used. 

Arkansas DIS provides the following IaaS options to its customers:  

Managed Windows Virtual Machine Hosting Unmanaged Windows Virtual Machine Hosting Managed Linux Virtual Machine Hosting – Open Source Unmanaged Linux Virtual Machine Hosting – Open Source

Managed Linux Virtual Machine Hosting – Red Hat Enterprise Support Unmanaged Linux Virtual Machine Hosting – Red Hat Enterprise Support Enterprise Disk Storage Service Enterprise Tape and Backup Storage Services

Platform As A Service (PAAS)

Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a form of cloud computing that provides hardware and software tools that are typically required for application and solution development but may be used for other purposes as well.  The cloud provider hosts the hardware and software on its own infrastructure, freeing developers from having to install in-house hardware and/or software to develop applications and solutions.   

DIS provides the following PaaS options to its customers:  

Shared Microsoft SQL Server Hosting Shared Microsoft Directory Services Shared Microsoft File and Print

Shared Microsoft Exchange Email Hosting Shared Microsoft SharePoint Hosting