If your company uses AS/400, cloud services can be invaluable resources for ensuring flexibility and reliability in your IT environment. There are many different types of cloud hosting that serve many purposes, so it’s helpful to think about your options. Two of the main types you’ll find are infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS). With IaaS, your environment is hosted on a remote datacenter, while your operating system and critical updates remain your own responsibility. PaaS involves operating system maintenance and the management of critical updates and other services in addition to basic hosting, so your IT department can focus on application development within the hosted platform.

There are many reasons to take advantage of AS/400 cloud services, especially because of the versatility of easily scalable resources and the security of having your computing environment hosted offsite. For instance, if you have a short-term need for additional resources for application development and testing, you can temporarily scale up your infrastructure without having to add physical components that you won’t need later. Or, if you want to shift entirely to an operating expense, you can transfer your whole environment to the cloud so that you no longer need to pay for procurement and maintenance of new hardware, and you can even sell off your old hardware that you no longer need.