IT Infrastructure

The term infrastructure in an information technology (IT) context refers to an enterprise’s entire collection of hardware, software, networks, data centers, facilities and related equipment used to develop, test, operate, monitor, manage and/or support information technology services.

IT infrastructure refers to the composite hardware, software, network resources and services required for the existence, operation and management of an enterprise IT environment. It allows an organization to deliver IT solutions and services to its employees, partners and/or customers and is usually internal to an organization and deployed within owned facilities.

In a data center, infrastructure includes the power, cooling and building elements necessary to support hardware. On the internet, infrastructure also includes transmission media, such as cables,satellites, antennas, routers, aggregators, repeaters and other network components that control transmission paths. Cloud computing provides a flexible IT infrastructure in which resources can be added and removed as workloads change. In an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model, a third-party provider hosts hardware, software, servers, storage and other infrastructure components on behalf of its users.