Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is an instant computing infrastructure, provisioned and managed over the internet. IaaS quickly scales up and down with demand, letting you pay only for what you use. It helps you avoid the capital expense and complexity of buying and managing your own physical servers and other datacenter infrastructure. Each resource is offered as a separate service component, and you only need to rent a particular one for as long as you need it. In addition to virtual servers, some vendors also offer physical servers as options within their IaaS. This is often needed for applications and databases that are more resource intensive or legacy applications that do not run well on virtual servers.

Unified Communications is the integration of communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence, voice, mobility (twinning/mobile app), audio, web & video conferencing, desktop sharing, data sharing/collaboration, call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services, such as unified messaging (integrated voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax). UC is not a single product, but a set of products providing a consistent unified user interface and user experience across multiple devices.

Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) is a cloud-based customer experience solution that allows companies to utilize a contact center provider’s software. A CCaaS model allows businesses to purchase only the technology they need, reducing the need for internal IT support.

The Internet of Things – also referred to as IoT, is a network of interconnected devices capable of collecting and exchanging data. This model boasts interconnected devices designed to sense, collect, and send data to a repository over the internet, and can in turn be accessed by other internet capable devices. The evolution and convergence of IoT technology typically eliminate the need for repetitive tasks via automation without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.

A colocation center (also spelled co-location, or colo) or “carrier hotel,” is a data center facility in which a business can rent space for servers and other computing hardware. Many colocation providers sell to a wide range of customers, ranging from large enterprises to small companies. Typically, a colo provides the building, cooling, power, bandwidth, and physical security while the customer provides servers and storage. Customers retain control over the design and usage of their equipment, but daily management of the data center and facility is overseen by the multi-tenant colocation provider.