Cloud-based Services

The evolution of cloud-based services has been profound over the last couple of years. The workspace revolution bought by cloud-based services is phenomenal. Cloud providers have mastered the model maturity and it is well tested; virtualization and abstraction at every possible part of IT infrastructure and services.

The products available on pay as you go model and usage of products and services is subscription based. Cloud has given a unified workspace which grants combined access to applications, data, and content and collaboration tools. 

Today we look more in detail about cloud services models, in which one of them is an emerging concept and the other one is an established platform. XaaS (Everything as a service) and SaaS (Software as a service), their key differences i.e XaaS vs SaaS, features etc. 

What is XaaS?

XaaS or Anything or Everything as a service is a broader umbrella term which enables clients to experience the automated deployment of everything. Anything or Everything as a service – XaaS abstracts all issues which an internal team of cloud engineers require to resolve.

Assume this as a cab is a car as service you pay only when you ride; you need not buy a car, fill petrol, pump up tires, you do not even have to ride it yourself. Similar ways IT services can be provided over the cloud that clients can order over the Internet. ‘X’ can be changed; IaaS refers to Infrastructure as a service, PaaS – a platform for development, SaaS – a software as a service. Others could be DBaaS – Database as a service, DaaS – Desktop as a service, MaaS – Malware as a service. 

XaaS include many things some use cases are as under:

• Software as a service (SaaS) – Salesforce, Zoho
• Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) – OpenShift, Google App Engine, Heroku
• Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) – Digital Ocean, Azure, Google Compute Engine, AWS
• Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) – Acronis, AWS, Infrascale
• Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) – Amazon, Rackspace, Cisco 
• Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) – Dynamo DB, IBM DB2, Mongo DB Atlas
• Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) –AWS, Azure
• Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) –Desktone, Citrix
• Monitoring-as-a-Service (MaaS)- Azure Monitor, Amazon cloud watch
• FaaS (Functions as a Service) –Google cloud functions, MS Azure functions, AWS Lambda
• CaaS (Container as a Service) – Amazon elastic container, Azure container instances
• Healthcare-as-a-Service (HaaS) bluerange.io, plainid.com
• Security-as-a-Service (SECaaS)- Cloudflare, Forcepoint, Checkpoint

Features of XaaS

Some of the key features of XaaS 

• Allows moving from capital or capex expenditure into hardware because all physical resources are from service provider as a service
• Quickly launching access to technologies, scale up infrastructure automatically as per workload 
• Staff will be freed from operational tasks and can focus on more relevant tasks and projects 

What is SaaS?

Local use of application / software is replaced by Software as a service (SaaS) platform. It is provision of third-party applications on cloud. Most SaaS applications run directly via web browser and do not require individual installation on client systems thus eliminating the need for maintaining, supporting, installing, troubleshooting applications at each end point device.

All technical issues are abstracted up to the vendor, with clients only having to access applications on go from anywhere. Common examples are Microsoft office 365, Google service, Google Apps, Cisco WebEx, Citrix GoToMeeting, Dropbox etc. 

Features of SaaS

Some of the key features of SaaS are:

• Applications are updated automatically
• Data is synchronized between devices thus it is accessible from anywhere and anytime
• Offers access to on demand features
• No need to maintain application or software it is service provider responsibility

Comparison Table: XaaS vs SaaS

Below table summarizes the key differences between the two types of cloud-based service models:

Quick fact!

The global Everything as a Service Market Size was $474.9 billion in 2021, and is projected to reach $2,631.1 billion by 2031