IaaS
Infrastructure as a Service — the cloud provider supplies virtualized compute, storage, and networking; you manage the OS and up.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is the model where the provider owns and manages the physical hardware, networking, and virtualization layer, while the customer controls the operating system, middleware, and applications. Azure Virtual Machines are the textbook IaaS example: Azure provisions the host, but you choose the OS, install updates, and configure security. The key exam distinction is the shared-responsibility boundary—in IaaS the customer handles OS patching, identity configuration, and application security, duties that shift to the provider in PaaS and SaaS. A common AZ-900 trap: Azure App Service is PaaS, because Azure manages the OS and runtime.
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