Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) delivers virtual machines, storage, and networking in a cloud provider’s datacenter — you manage the OS and applications; the vendor manages physical hardware and facilities. Canadian teams use IaaS to replace aging servers, spin up dev/test environments, or host line-of-business apps with pay-as-you-go pricing. Data residency choices (Canada Central, Canada East) matter for PIPEDA and provincial rules. IaaS still requires patching, backup, and security hardening. Many SMBs pair IaaS with an MSP for monitoring and governance rather than running VMs as "set and forget."
