What is XaaS(Anything as a Service)?
Are you wondering what is XaaS(Anything as a Service)? Why use it for your business?
In this blog article, we will answer the most popular questions about the XaaS, Anything as a Service, or Everything as a Service business model.
You are asking the right questions, given the increasing popularity of the XaaS model in the cloud computing market. According to a report by Fortune Business Insights, the global market for everything as a service or XaaS will reach 2.3 trillion by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 23.4% during the forecast period.
Let’s see in detail what is XaaS, how it works for businesses, what are its benefits and drawbacks, etc.
What is XaaS?
Cloud computing has changed over the years the interaction between businesses and computing resources.
Cloud resources enable businesses of all sizes to efficiently utilize computing resources like servers, development platforms, data storage, etc., without installing them on their premises. The result is a rapid development of software solutions that are more flexible, scalable, secure, and built on the latest technologies.
XaaS takes cloud utilization a step further by offering IT solutions packaged in the form of cloud services that users can digitally consume over the internet.
These services provided over the network do not follow a traditional purchasing method of licensing with fixed prices, etc., and instead, they have a flexible pricing model that charges users according to their consumption of the services.
Such pricing models help small businesses that are unable to make a big monetary investment for resources they are not even using at the maximum capacity initially. Such businesses, with lower capital to start, can go with a small utilization of computing services and scale as they expand and their need grows.
XaaS Examples
Some popular XaaS examples include the following:
Software as a Service
You probably are already using SaaS or software as a service in your company. SaaS is the most popular anything-as-a-service with the global market reaching $374.48 billion US dollars by 2026.
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The SaaS model refers to the availability of software applications over the Internet. Applications are hosted centrally on a cloud and users do not need to download, install, and maintain them on their on-site computers.
Customers pay according to their usage of the SaaS application by generally subscribing to a monthly or yearly subscription plan.
Some of the popular SaaS examples include DropBox, Salesforce CRM, etc.
Platform as a Service
Platform as a cloud-based service has helped businesses move from their high-maintenance legacy systems to more flexible and easily scalable software development solutions.
PaaS refers to the availability of software development platforms, operating systems, database solutions, etc., on the cloud.
These platform-as-a-service resources help software developers efficiently develop, test, deploy, and maintain software applications in cloud-based development and deployment environments.
Some common PaaS examples include Heroku, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Google App Engine, etc.
The businesses are able to easily cut down expenses of buying, installing, and maintaining hardware and software computing resources on their premises. The clear benefits of PaaS have helped grow the market which is expected to reach $319 billion by 2030.
Infrastructure as a Service
IaaS is the provision of development and deployment infrastructure by cloud services providers. These service providers own the infrastructure resources and are responsible for their operation and maintenance.
Infrastructure as a service includes data centers, processing power, storage solutions, etc. Businesses can either rent or lease these computing and storage services for running software and storing data remotely.
Users pay fees according to their usage of the remote infrastructure resources and not according to the maintenance and operation costs of the infrastructure.
This model has gained popularity among businesses that are attracted to modernizing their infrastructure and moving to cloud-native development. The result is a growing IaaS market, expected to reach the value of $481.1 billion US dollars by 2030.
Popular infrastructure-as-a-service providers include Google Compute Engine, Microsoft Azure, Digital Ocean, etc.
Disaster Recovery as a Service
Disaster recovery as a service model enables businesses to back up their data and IT infrastructure in third-party cloud environments. In case of a disaster, the third party providing DRaaS is responsible for disaster recovery orchestration. It also helps users regain access to backup resources after a disaster.
Being an as-a-service, the users are not required to install and maintain a backup system or a disaster recovery process on their sites. The disasters can include natural disasters like floods, hurricanes, etc., power outages, equipment breakdowns, cyberattacks, etc.
A DRaaS provider provides virtual servers for computing, storage, or network functions to users in case their physical servers are down due to a disaster. Once the physical servers are replaced or recovered, the user’s applications are migrated back to them.
Faster disaster recovery, lower cost, and enhanced reliability is expanding the market for DRaaS which is expected to grow to 23.5 billion US dollars by 2027 globally.
Some popular DRaaS include Azure Site Recovery, Zetta Backup and Recovery, Acronis Backup, etc.
Users can opt for disaster recovery as a service with either a subscription-based model or a pay-as-you-go model that helps them use DRaaS only in case of a disaster affecting their computing and storage infrastructure.
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Database as a Service
Users of a database as a service access the database system managed and hosted by a cloud service provider. Users do not have to install and configure a database management system on-premises.
All database systems, including NoSQL and SQL, are available as a service. Providers of the database as a service are responsible for database provision, licenses, maintenance, etc.
Database administrators and developers can access database services through cloud APIs for data manipulation, access, integration into software applications, etc., like other SaaS offerings.
Efficient data handling, easy database deployment, and no requirement for on-site hardware are a few of the many benefits that are giving the DBaaS market a boom. The global database as a service market is expected to reach $56.9 billion by 2027.
DynamoDB and Aurora by Amazon, GC Bigtable, Datastore by Google Cloud, etc., are popular DBaaS providers.
Storage as a Service
Storage as a service is an alternative to traditional physical storage and backup resources. Storage-as-a-service providers offer storage space for software applications, data, and backup processes over the network.
STaaS offers numerous benefits to businesses including, easy scalability of storage space, better adherence to compliance requirements like HIIPA, etc., optimized performance, etc.
Moreover, businesses do not have to bear the additional costs of maintaining physical storage disks and implementing backup procedures. All this overhead is the responsibility of the storage as a service provider.
Some storage service providers also assist in data management and provide data analytics tools based on the latest AI and ML technologies that help businesses utilize their data efficiently.
Storage services are available in the form of storage objects, storage capacity, network file systems, etc.
The storage resources can be accessed privately on-premises or as shared storage via a public cloud.
Simple Storage Service and Elastic File System by Amazon, Oracle cloud storage, Rackspace, etc., are some of the storage services available over the cloud.
Benefits of Everything as a Service (XaaS)
The benefits of offering IT products and services as digital services over the Internet are numerous. We list a few below:
Quick and Easy Implementation
XaaS model helps businesses adopt dynamic digital trends. They can just subscribe to the service they need and incorporate it into their business solutions easily. The hard part of buying, installing, and configuring a computing resource, for example, is all managed by the service provider.
Cost Effective
XaaS proves as a cost-effective model for small to medium-sized businesses. The businesses pay as per their usage and do not spend on resources they are not using currently such as processing power or storage space.
Flexibility
Everything as a service is also flexible to integrate into the business solutions. Businesses can easily scale up and down as per their requirements. For example, initially, a startup may not require much storage space for its web application, however, as the online traffic increases with time, the owner can opt for more server utilization from the service provider.
Better Use of Data
Storage as a service provides businesses with unlimited storage space opportunities. They can store huge amounts of data related to operations, customers, etc., and use it efficiently for predictive analytics.
Current and historical data help understand patterns of how users interact with a business product or service and what will be future market trends likely. The insights help businesses make effective strategies, achieve competitive advantage in the marketplace, enhance customer service, etc.
Improved Agility
Everything as a service helps businesses cater to the changing market demands. They become more agile as they can quickly adapt to the latest technologies and customize their processes and services, easily taking on more market opportunities.
Drawbacks of Everything as a Service Model
A few downsides to adopting everting as a service include the following:
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Internet Unreliability
As the XaaS model work on an internet connection, it adds a factor of unreliability. Since the internet can go down on the server side or the client side. This may cause critical business processes to halt.
However, the top cloud providers offer backup infrastructure in case an uncertain situation arises so that business continuity can be maintained. Such a XaaS provider offers service-level agreements (SLAs) to ensure an effective provision of services over the network.
Performance Lapse
Users can experience an inefficient performance of XaaS resources due to multiple reasons like network latency, resource bandwidth, etc.
As the number of XaaS users increases, such problems related to network congestion can arise. If persistent, resources’ underperformance and unreliability can cause major security and management problems.
Difficulty in Troubleshooting
XaaS makes it easier for businesses to incorporate cutting-edge technologies. However, if anything goes wrong, troubleshooting can become difficult for IT people.
Although businesses do not want to take the burden of installation and maintenance of complex resources on their shoulders, they want to maintain visibility into their computing resources and infrastructure. This requires training the IT team on these technologies.
Moreover, if the cloud provider decides to discontinue their services, businesses can find a hard time figuring out migration and integration procedures into other computation and storage resources. This may also harm the business users’ experiences.
Final Thoughts on What is XaaS
Everything as a service model is redefining the ways businesses set up and operate. XaaS enables them to quickly adopt trending digital services and offer modern solutions to their users. Cybersecurity and disaster recovery are also quite efficient with everything as a service model.
Businesses do not have to implement and maintain these solutions on-premises. A service provider can offer them a more robust and efficient solution over the cloud.
The pay-as-you-go model helps businesses utilize these resources much more cost-effectively. They can incorporate such services into their business solutions with more flexibility as per their business requirements.
The trending market of cloud computing models is causing rapid growth in the global XaaS market. If you, as a business CEO or CTO, are planning to integrate the latest digital services into your business with minimum capital expenses, XaaS is your best solution.
If you plan on packaging your business solution as a digital service to reach a wider user market, now is the time to undertake a XaaS application development project. However, whether you want to integrate XaaS or develop a XaaS product, you will require qualified professionals.
Read our guide on how to build everything as a service for more insights on XaaS development.
If you are still looking for experienced software developers to assist you in your XaaS integration or development project, DevTeam.Space can help you via its field-expert software developers community.
Write to us your initial project specifications, and one of our account managers will get back to you for more information on how we can help you.
FAQs on What is XaaS
Amazon Web Services, Heroku, Salesforce, OneDrive, etc., are all examples of XaaS.
XaaS refers to a wide range of services related to cloud computing available through remote access over the internet.
With the XaaS model, users get access to products, tools, technologies, etc., as services. In the software industry, this mainly refers to software as a service, platform as a service, and infrastructure as a service. However, now everything is possible as a digital service based on cloud computing technology.
Alexey Semeney
Founder of DevTeam.Space
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Alexey is the founder of DevTeam.Space. He is award nominee among TOP 26 mentors of FI's 'Global Startup Mentor Awards'.
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