Glossary of terms

Anything as a Service (XaaS)

Anything- or Everything as a Service (XaaS) is a general category of cloud computing and remote access services. It is therefore an umbrella term referring to the growing number of services and tools delivered through the cloud and the ability to combine them into a single offering.

Buying every piece of hard- and software means that companies have to invest a relatively high amount of money up front into equipment, which they could utilize much better in areas like R&D, marketing or others, especially if they are startups.

With the “as-a-Service” model there is no major investment upfront, and it is much easier to up- or downsize the IT environment, depending on the respective needs of the business. “As-a-Service” models are not a new concept at all. Companies have always been looking for ways to reduce hosting fees and eliminate server management. But the rise of cloud computing and IoT enabled us to fully embrace the “as-a-Service” concept.

XaaS solutions combine hardware, software, and services — traditionally sold separately — into a single customer offering. With an as-a-service model, customers can subscribe to solutions without having to purchase and maintain infrastructure. Companies no longer need to invest in creating and maintaining their own technology. The as-a-service model is a business approach that provides customers with flexible, scalable services and helps with business processes – all on demand. There are countless examples of the services mentioned.

The most common are:

  • Workplace as a Service (WaaS): With WaaS, purchasing, delivery, customer service, security, maintenance, and upgrades become easier for resellers. Hardware can arrive at the end customer fully configured and ready to use. Software, on the other hand, will be conveniently delivered via the cloud.
  • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This offers users the typical components of a data center infrastructure such as hardware, computing performance, storage or network resources via the cloud.
  • Platform as a Service (PaaS): a complete cloud-based development and deployment environment, giving you access to the resources you need to deploy a wide variety of solutions.
  • Software as a Service (SaaS): This involves licensing software on a subscription basis and delivering it over the Internet.

XaaS enables organizations to set up horizontal services that can be made available for different departments to leverage in the way that they need. With strong APIs, organizations can create a module ⁠— let’s say a customer interaction module ⁠— that allows sales teams to track and report on a prospect’s interactions, and that same module can be used by the customer service team and call center to manage, issue triage, and resolve.

Blog