Infrastructure-as-a-Service is becoming more popular among small- to medium-sized businesses as the cost and complexity of infrastructure grows – which presents opportunities for resellers.
As digitalisation and the move to the cloud continues apace, it means the infrastructure requirements for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are increasingly complex – often exceeding their in-house expertise, which is why more are turning to infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS).
“Traditionally SMBs employed teams, or assigned a reluctant financial director, to run their on-premise infrastructure,” says Steve Spittal, technology director at Pulsant Data Centres. “But as complexity, cost pressures, cloud and a consumption-based economy have converged, we’ve seen a stark rise in IaaS, replacing traditional models.
“From an operational standpoint, IaaS brings flexible pricing, cost certainty and skills. Strategically, it opens a faster, low-risk approach to innovation. SMBs can experiment, iterate and even fail without the heavy financial consequences historically associated with infrastructure investment.”
Jordan Hobday, country manager at NETGEAR Enterprise UK&I, adds that SMBs are turning to IaaS for cost efficiency and to support remote work, business continuity and faster application deployment. “As a result, the role of networking has become more critical than ever,” he says. “Reliable, high-performance connectivity is now essential to ensure seamless access to cloud infrastructure. As cloud environments become more distributed, managing networks is also becoming more important, which is where AI is playing a key role.
“AI is transforming the way networks are managed. What used to require a large, specialised IT team is now becoming accessible to much smaller groups or even individuals.
“Today’s network management platforms, for example, come with AI built right in, and that’s a game changer for SMBs. Instead of digging through dashboards or logs, IT teams can rely on intelligent analytics and automated insights to spot issues earlier and understand what’s happening across the network at a glance.
“It’s not adding complexity, it’s simplifying things. AI is becoming a practical day to day partner, helping teams anticipate what the network will need, resolve issues proactively and reduce the amount of manual work that used to hold them back.”
Guiding through
Resellers can play an important role in guiding SMB customers through a migration to IaaS. “Resellers have a role to play as advisors in this environment, bringing empathy and understanding of the challenge’s breadth and complexity,” says Steve.
“Even SMBs that were ‘born in the cloud’ are now navigating increasingly complex sovereignty and data residency requirements.
“Rising costs from hyperscale providers are prompting customers to reassess their approach. We’re seeing the emergence of a more balanced model, one that sits between hyperscale and traditional infrastructure, offering greater cost control while maintaining flexibility and scalability.”
Guy McWilliam, VP, Global Channels at Flexera, says the main point to recognise is that the migration itself is not where most of the risk sits. “The difficulty usually comes from the fact that the customer does not have a full view of their current environment before anything moves, which means inefficiencies, duplication or exposure are often carried across into the new platform without being addressed,” he explains.
“The partners that handle this well tend to focus first on understanding the estate properly and helping the customer decide what should move and what should not, and then staying engaged once the migration is complete so that the environment remains under control as it evolves.
“That ongoing involvement is becoming more important as customers look for support beyond the initial transition.”
Kumar Sokka, CEO of Acre Security, advises resellers to not lead with the destination but the journey. “The customers who push back hardest aren’t against cloud, they’re asking: what happens to everything we’ve already built?” he says. “That’s a fair question and resellers who answer honestly will close more business than those who pitch cloud as the obvious answer.
“Start with a proper audit. What is the customer running today? What does it depend on? Where are the gaps? That diagnostic work is where a reseller adds real value, not by recommending a product, but by mapping a path from where the customer is to where they want to be.
“The practical answer to migration anxiety is letting customers move at their own pace.”
Aaron Rees, senior vice president, AWS Business at Westcon-Comstor and CEO at Rebura, a Westcon-Comstor company, says the key is providing structure and confidence. “Assessments, clear migration plans and expert guidance make all the difference,” he says.
Reseller considerations
When pitching IaaS to customers, there are various considerations for resellers. “Scale, predictability and innovation are the predominant drivers of IaaS demand increases,” says Steve. “But the risks brought to bear by the current RAM crisis have compounded all of these, with reliance on older hardware becoming untenable. Many businesses are turning to IaaS as a buffer against these market dynamics. With immediate access to large-scale memory and compute capacity, IaaS providers can help customers maintain continuity, manage growth and mitigate supply-side risks.
“For resellers, this strengthens the value proposition: IaaS is not just about flexibility, it’s about ensuring stability in an increasingly volatile infrastructure landscape.”
Guy adds that a key consideration is that the value can no longer sit in the transaction itself. “Customers have more flexibility in how they buy, particularly as marketplace routes become more common, which means the role of the partner is shifting towards what they contribute around that decision,” he says.
“This is where understanding the customer’s existing environment becomes important, along with being able to show where pressure is building and how that can be addressed over time.”
Aaron says customers care about agility, resilience and cost control. “Resellers should emphasise the services that wrap around the infrastructure, such as data, AI and managed services,” he adds. “Addressing concerns around cost and complexity openly also helps build trust from the start.”
Sustainability considerations
Sustainability is also a consideration when putting together an IaaS solution. “Sustainability is part of the IaaS discussion, although it is rarely the starting point for SMB customers,” says Guy. “What tends to bring it into focus is the work done to understand and manage the environment more effectively, because once customers can see what is running and what is not, it becomes easier to identify areas of waste or unnecessary usage.
“Addressing that improves cost efficiency and reduces excess consumption at the same time, so sustainability becomes a natural extension of getting the environment into a better state, rather than something that sits separately from it.”
Kumar says the environmental case is strong. “On-premises systems run continuously regardless of how much they’re being used,” he says. “Hardware gets manufactured, shipped and replaced on a fixed cycle. Cloud infrastructure pools resources across many customers and is operated by providers who are genuinely investing in energy efficiency. For an SMB running its own server room, the footprint is often worse than it looks.
“We see the sustainability conversation coming from two places. Procurement teams have ESG obligations and need to show progress. Operational teams just want less hardware to manage. Resellers who can speak to both angles are better positioned with both buyer types.”
Aaron adds that cloud platforms such as AWS typically offer greater energy efficiency than traditional on prem environments. “Combining AWS’s sustainability tools with FinOps practices means organisations can optimise costs and carbon impact,” he says. “Resellers can differentiate by helping customers link cloud strategy directly to sustainability targets.”
Evolving market
The IaaS market will continue to evolve over the next 12-18 months. “Sovereignty will continue to be a major driver of IaaS adoption, with regionally focused platforms and providers gaining market share,” says Steve.
“CTOs will need to deepen their understanding of infrastructure through the lens of sovereignty, not just in operational terms, but also in relation to digital sovereignty and intellectual property residency.
“At the same time, the broader market dynamic for mid-market and smaller businesses has shifted significantly. Economic pressure, regulatory complexity and technology disruption mean that survival and growth are no longer guaranteed.”
Jordan says that growth will be driven by the need for flexibility, cost control and remote accessibility. “At the same time, environments are becoming more distributed, with hybrid and multi-cloud models adding complexity,” he adds. “This will place increasing pressure on network infrastructure. The days of juggling half a dozen disconnected tools to manage networks, for example, or troubleshoot issues, or deploy new sites are fading fast, mostly because SMBs don’t have the time, staff or appetite for that kind of operational overhead.
“On the networking side, unified, cloud managed platforms are being built specifically with SMBs in mind. These platforms bring everything – management, visibility, control – into one clean, central interface. And that alone solves a huge pain point. Instead of hopping between dashboards or wrestling with different vendors’ tools, IT teams, or MSPs acting as their IT teams, can deploy, monitor and troubleshoot from one place. It reduces tool sprawl, accelerates rollout times, and makes day to day operations easier.
“For partners and MSPs, this shift is especially impactful because it will lead to faster and more consistent deployments, far easier remote management and more scalable service delivery without any of the complexity associated with enterprise-grade environments. More customers, less friction.”
