The term XaaS, Anything as a Service, came into use after certain technologies and innovations were connected over networks and converged to become productized. It is a cloud computing concept where a large number of products, tools, and technologies are delivered to users as a service over the internet rather than on-premises or in a physical format.
A subscription-based model, it is impacting nearly every industry with entrepreneurs changing the way they do business, moving away from slow manual processes to digital platforms. Businesses are using digital transformation to grow customer engagements and boost connectivity, make mobile operations possible, expand, automate and analyse data to aid in decision-making, leading to business alignment and value. While digital transformation may sound complex to many business owners, XaaS simplify the complexities by combining all entities into a single hub to run a digital ecosystem.
The core idea behind XaaS is that businesses can purchase specific kinds of personal resources in a flexible consumption model rather than as an upfront purchase or licence. Here, any IT function can be transformed into a service for enterprises on a consumption-based model and utility-based offering, which helps to rationalise costs and expenses.
KET FEATURES
- Applications and services delivered via the cloud
- Subscription-based model, customers subscribe to services and products on an ongoing basis
- Highly scalable
EXAMPLES of XaaS
XaaS is the more general term. There are many different types of XaaS deployment models. The three main ones are SaaS, platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS).
- Authentication as a service, or AaaS, uses cloud services for identity and access management
- Containers as a service, or CaaS, enables the deployment and management of containers using container-based virtualization
- Database as a service, or DBaaS, provides access to database platforms through the cloud. Public cloud providers like AWS and Azure have DBaaS offerings
- Device as a service, or DaaS, is when a third-party vendor offers PCs, smartphones and other mobile computing devices as a paid service
- Disaster recovery as a service, or DRaaS, enables cloud providers to help organizations regain functionality after a disaster
- Function as a service, or FaaS, enables cloud customers to develop applications, deploy functionalities and only be charged when the functionality executes
- Malware as a service, or MaaS, is a type of security SaaS delivered over the public cloud to help organizations guard against ransomware and distributed denial-of-service VMware AppDefense is an example of MaaS
- Network as a service, or NaaS, is hosted network infrastructure provided by a third party
- Storage as a service, or STaaS, provides application, data and backup storage systems in the cloud
- Unified communications as a service, or UCaaS, is hosted software that supports synchronous and asynchronous communication from any device. UCaaS facilitates team collaboration.
BENEFITS of XaaS
Smaller companies benefit exceptionally from XaaS for several reasons, but the most significant of these advantages are:
I. Lower Capex & Overheads
XaaS has helped to bring down the cost significantly as companies no longer have to invest in multiple software programmes, buy expensive servers, storage equipment and also space to keep them.
In the past, businesses invested a chunk of hard-earned money in buying licensed software products and installing them on-site. They took up space on the premises and had to be backed up, maintained, and upgraded regularly. With the emergence of XaaS and cloud services, in-house IT infrastructure is slowly vanishing. There are fewer servers, hard drives, network switches, software deployments and related utilities like cooling.
While improving the expense model, XaaS has simplified IT deployment as companies can now buy only the apps they need and pay as they go, allowing a shift to operational expenditure and high-value projects. Here, the third-party provider’s staff maintain, upgrade and troubleshoot the service.
The reduction in expenditure, IT staffing and firefighting is a boon for any business, particularly startups that may have limited capital.
II. Speeding new apps and business processes
Elasticity and scalability are key in the XaaS model. It allows companies to respond quickly to market demands with new apps or solutions. The businesses can simply add or subtract services according to their needs because of the model’s resource pooling and rapid elasticity support.
The need of a business may change over time and an additional project can increase the demand significantly. The updates and add-ons can happen frequently and earlier, it meant added expenditure and that too on a regular basis. With XaaS, new apps or solutions can be easily added to the virtual pack on a temporary or long-term basis and these new updates may be free of charge or discounted.
In other words, XaaS allows smaller companies to introduce new solutions more quickly and access tools that would have been out of reach financially in the past.
Access to cutting-edge technology and democratizing innovation helps to keep pace with changes in employee and customer needs. It also provides faster implementation time for various activities of the organization and can free up resources for innovation.
III. Security
Small businesses are not always prepared to weather a cyberattack and hackers see them as easy targets, anticipating weaker system protection due to fewer financial resources. XaaS, on the other hand, provides the rigorous cyber security cover of technology providers. Implementing better authentication and password policies and leveraging apps can protect business and customer data.
According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), cybersecurity can be drastically improved in a streamlined cloud environment and a homogenous infrastructure, where IT managers can easily identify and address potential threats and irregularities.
.It also ensures that the information is safely backed up. In the event of a fire or any other disaster, all company information in the Cloud can be accessed immediately and restored in a matter of hours.
XaaS bundles the hardware that customers need with valuable services like cloud and security and take management off the hands of those with limited IT resources.
CHALLENGES of XaaS
There can be downsides to any technology. Let’s look at some drawbacks of this model.
(a) Resilience and internet reliability
XaaS users will face problems when the internet is down or running at a slower speed. There can be issues of Internet reliability, flexibility, provisioning, and management of infrastructure resources. If the XaaS providers’ server goes down, it will affect the services. However, service level agreements can ensure the quality of services.
Additionally, bandwidth, latency, data storage, and retrieval times might suffer once XaaS becomes more popular.
(b) Visibility
With XaaS, customers have little control over the service provider’s environment and infrastructure and cannot gauge service health or assume a more proactive role.
(c) Vendor lock-in and dependence
When a provider goes out of business, is acquired, discontinues a service or alters its features at any time, it impacts the XaaS users.
(d) Security
Lack of proper ransomware and malware security at the provider’s end can put business data and sensitive information at peril.
(e) Hidden fees
Users may incur hidden or unexpected costs while using this convenient pay-as-you-go model
(f) Unforeseen Complexities
Lack of knowledge about the latest technologies can make it tough to troubleshoot in businesses if a problem arises since XaaS involves various technologies and tools and these enterprises rely on staff of the service providers. Therefore, it is important to educate the staff about the methodology and technology.
THE FUTURE of XaaS
The XaaS market is projected to grow to USD 2.4 trillion in 2029 from USD 437 billion in 2021, according to a Fortune Business Insights report. The global XaaS market is currently growing at a compound annual growth rate of around 26 per cent, at least till 2025.
The COVID-19 pandemic spurred XaaS adoption in various industries such as E-Commerce, Healthcare, BFSI, Retail, Manufacturing and Life Sciences. The convergence of 5G – and, in the future, 6G – edge computing, big data, artificial intelligence, automation, machine learning and the internet of things, however, have contributed to the move to the XaaS model and the cloud in general. As businesses need to process more information and incorporate pretty robust operating models for more efficient business processes, it becomes less economically feasible to host computing services on-premises.
XaaS brings along the possibility of having access to all leading technical capabilities and innovations in real-time and the capability to generate transformative advantages in the long run.
In other words, XaaS is a trend that is prevalent in many facets of our lives with businesses offering the service of goods rather than goods themselves. It holds the key to transforming the very enterprise landscape, bringing a paradigm shift in the conventional form where on-premises business service delivery was prominent.