Cloud computing and services has augmented from the last decade – from SaaS (Software as a Service) to PaaS (Platform as a Service), and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), cloud computing has revolutionized the workplace.
As per IMARC, Anything-as-a-Service or Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS) is estimated to reach $344.3 billion by 2024.
Everything as a service includes various aspects, however what is XaaS? Read on to find out!
What is Everything-as-a-service (XaaS)?
Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS) is a new concept and it all started with cloud computing terminologies – SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), and PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service).
Basically, Everything-as-a-Service, also known as anything-as-a-service, means that anything and everything is now a service with remote access and cloud computing.
Cloud computing offers varied services on web network allowing easy storage and sharing of data. Cloud computing in industries like healthcare also added a layer of data security during storage and transmission while only paying for the resources they are using while reducing the setup and hardware costs.
Everything-as-a-Service takes things a step further and uses technologies, tools, and services to provide to the user. Prior to cloud services, companies had to buy licensed products and install them. With XaaS in the picture, now companies can pay for what they need and utilize.
Furthermore, XaaS can help companies to decrease operational expenses, gain access to advanced technologies faster, and have greater control over company’s IT infrastructure.
The Reasons Behind Rise of Everything-as-a-Service
There are several reasons why XaaS is on the rise and why companies are preferring it over other as-a-service platforms.
1. Cost Savings
Companies can save money by not investing in multiple software programs and avert buying expensive hardware such as storage and server equipment, thus eliminating the need to pay for the space to keep all that hardware.
Further, small businesses can customize their technologies to suit customer needs and adapt to rapid changing technical environment. XaaS helps in cost savings by nullifying the need to recruit skilled IT professionals to handle systems.
Maintenance of the system is handled by the cloud service providers. Everything-as-a-Service frees up resources which can be used for company’s core operations.
XaaS is capable of reducing staffing and overhead expenses as well by simply subscribing to a service, for example staff augmentation and IT staffing services. Staff augmentation is cost-effective because it helps to bridge talent gap in the companies, offers greater scalability and flexibility for businesses, helps to wrap up projects before deadlines, and provide a large array of talent for companies.
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2. Better Cybersecurity
An improper cybersecurity plan places companies – small or big in a risky position and jeopardizes everything that’s been built. According to a report, around 50 percent of the businesses experience cyberattacks and small companies go out of business after six months of cyberattack.
Small businesses are an easy target for the hackers because of a weak firewall system, as a result of minimal financial resources. XaaS assures better cybersecurity and disaster recovery management, all company’s data can be backed up, restored, and accessed easily.
3. Greater Agility and Scalability
XaaS model is agile because it’s easier and faster for the development teams to introduce new solutions and it provides a chance for them to utilize technological tools that otherwise would be expensive to get. XaaS helps businesses to grow and thrive, especially for the small businesses.
Further, for companies to scale, owners need to put together the right mindset and the tools to manage and process orders. Everything-as-a-Service helps to scale by assembling appropriate staff, systems, methodologies, technology, and partners to generate sales, and manage outflow and inflow of finances.
Services Encompassed Under XaaS
Now that its clear why Everything-as-a-Service is rising in popularity, let’s look into different services (non-exhaustive) that are gaining traction apart from SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS.
1. Authentication as a Service (AaaS)
AaaS offers authentication capabilities in cloud, so financial organizations can safely verify customers using MFA (Multi-factor Authentication). AaaS supports technologies such as biometrics, FIDO, next generation hardware, and band authentication.
Financial organizations can decrease operating costs for IT departments with the help of authentication as a service. Banks benefit from AaaS due to its ability to scale up or down as per demands. Furthermore, AaaS is deployed within weeks without the need to provision, purchase, and deploy any other IT infrastructure.
Another advantage of AaaS is that it supports hybrid hardware and software authentication technologies, multi-user and device profiling, and continuous monitoring. Financial organizations mitigate fraud by using AaaS with cloud-based MFA on a reliable security platform.
2. Communication as a Service (CaaS)
Communication as a service is a communication solution which is offered by vendors for business communication. Companies use these services to surge efficiency of businesses involving video and audio telecommunication. communication includes instant messaging (IM), internet telephony or VoIP, and video conference applications.
Communication as a service provides flexibility, allowing for addition of modes and devices on demand. CaaS is a part of a larger category known as SaaS (Software as a Service), and accessing communication services over the internet is convenient.
3. Database as a Service (DBaaS)
Database as a service is a cloud computing service and service provider handles everything related to database. Database as a service includes everything needed to operate a database such as licenses, provisioning, maintenance, and support.
With database as a service, cloud computing provides virtually infinite growth without upfront investment. Therefore, database continues to grow and reaches a capacity to make upfront investments for additional hardware. DBAAS providers manage aspects such as hardware, infrastructure, software, and operating systems.
Furthermore, DBaaS helps to improve and extend data operations, thus resolving the problem of resources; and extract meaningful insights from the data.
4. Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
Desktop as a Service is cloud computing in which a provider delivers virtual desktops to users on the internet that is licensed with per-user subscription. The provider manages backend, updates, back-ups, maintenance, and data storage.
DaaS offers two main types of desktop services – non-persistent desktop where desktops are wiped out every time a user logs out; and persistent desktop where users can customize and save desktop.
Further, DaaS allows companies to offer remote IT support for the employees and reduce downtime. DaaS need les computing power as compared to traditional desktop or laptop, hence are less expensive and utilize low power.
5. Analytics as a Service (AaaS)
AaaS offers subscription based data analytics software and processes via cloud. Analytics as a service provides a customized BI solution and utilizes predictive analytics, data mining, and AI to effectively reveal data sets.
With analytics as a service actionable insights, analysis, and big data cleaning are an affordable and scalable option for companies at various stages of growth.
Companies that depend on data are turning to AaaS for analytical requirements, also companies with sturdy IT departments rely on AaaS for simple yet descriptive analytics.
6. Containers as a Service (CaaS)
Container as a service is a cloud based service allows IT departments and software developers to organize, upload, scale, run, and manage containers by utilizing container based virtualization.
A container is basically a package that encompasses runtime, code, system, and configuration so it can run on every host system. CaaS makes it easier to compose and deploy microservice or distributed architectures.
Further, CaaS consists of a functionality for orchestration management and scaling; and enables development teams to build high visibility. In addition to this, container as a service augments team development velocity through rapid deployments.
7. Functions as a Service (FaaS)
Function as a service and serverless are combined with each other, however the truth is that FaaS is a sub-set of serverless. Here, serverless is aimed at any service component such as storage, compute, messaging, database, API gateways, and much more; where management configuration, and billing are invisible to the users.
Function as a service is a central technology under serverless architectures and focused on event driven computing. With function as a service server is divided into functions that is scaled automatically, so as not to handle infrastructure.
FaaS allows to pay only for the resources used, thus FaaS is cost-effective and offers dynamic scheduled tasks or workloads.
What is Servitization in XaaS?
The main aim of XaaS is to surge the value of its offering for the users. The target in the XaaS model is to convert one-time buyers to active users of services. A XaaS model ensures that the users put their money to good use, and that’s where the concept of servitization comes in the picture.
With the success of subscription business models (for example Apple), companies are pushing towards leveraging servitization – an amalgamation of services and products in one package. In a servitization model, users pay a fixed amount per service consumed and the ownership of the service remains with the provider.
In a nutshell, Everything as a service indicates that now everything can be a service. Companies now just have to pay and use selected services needs to grow business. XaaS companies are gaining traction in the USA and will not slow down anytime soon.
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