Table of Contents

IT Infrastructure Defined

Why IT Infrastructure Is Important for Small Business

Stay Digitally in Step With Bigger Businesses

Support Flexible Workforces

Ensure Security

Types of IT Infrastructure

Traditional Infrastructure

Cloud Infrastructure

Hybrid Infrastructure

How IT Infrastructure Works

IT infrastructure works using three main building blocks: hardware, software and networking. Within each of these blocks are multiple components.

Hardware: Physical Parts

IT infrastructure is rooted in physical components—even if a business outsources to third parties and/or cloud providers for everything related to IT. Hardware includes computers, printers, servers and some other equipment found in a data center. It also includes the physical space in which all these components are housed, such as a data center or server room.

Security technology may also fall under this category. However, some security solutions, such as firewalls, tread the line of hardware and software.

Software: App Parts

While software requires hardware to operate, it’s considered its own component of IT infrastructure—especially in the era of software-defined solutions where software is replacing some hardware in the data center. Software consists of operating systems, business applications and environments in which organizations build and store applications, such as containers.

Networking: Connective Parts

Network components include both hardware and software and they facilitate connections to the internet. The physical cables for internet connectivity and appliances, such as routers and switches, are under the networking umbrella. This category includes local area network (LAN) and wide area network (WAN) technologies as well as application interfaces that allow IT personnel to configure the network and manage user access and network security.

You may see routers and switches in the hardware category as well because many IT infrastructure components are interconnected and perform related functions.