What is XaaS?
Anything-as-a-Service Explained

With ever-growing computing power, there are more possibilities than ever to allocate resources on demand without relying on physical location. The advancement of cloud computing has led to a staggering explosion of products labeled as a service.

And this is where XaaS comes into play: XaaS stands for Anything-as-aService and describes a use case where every aspect of your business or project uses resources provided over the Internet on-demand only.

Why Is XaaS Business Model Important?

The main idea behind XaaS and other cloud services is that companies can cut costs and gain specific types of personal resources by acquiring services from providers on subscription. Before the advent of XaaS and cloud services, enterprises often had to purchase licensed software products and install them on site. They ensure security in the workplace and provide costly server setup and other infrastructure for all of their business processes.

Unlike buying, cloud services can provide much-needed flexibility. This concept includes resource pooling and quick adaptability to changing markets, where business leaders can simply add or subtract services if needed.

Using the cloud as a hub is great for all the offered functions you get: resources are always available and can be reclaimed when they are no longer needed. In this case, business processes can be accelerated as customization is very fast.

The XaaS delivery model is usually governed by what is known as a service level agreement (SLA), in which the customer and provider work closely together to understand in what way the services will be delivered. Modsen company will provide you with quality assistance in developing a Product-as-a-Service business model for your particular needs and goals. Our tech stack includes IaaS, DevOps, Clouds, and the team of qualified specialists are eager to help you select, implement and manage the service that will boost your business’s productivity.

Modsen tech stack

IaaS

DevOps

Clouds

Benefits of XaaS Business Mode

By using XaaS, you can open new revenue streams while improving operational efficiencies and customer relationships. The major benefits that businesses get from implementing XaaS into their infrastructure include:

Accident Recovery

You can have many clusters of data all over the world, and if there is some natural disaster, you can easily duplicate your data from the surviving data stores and access it.

Location Independent System

Since XaaS services are provided over the Internet, all the data is stored and can be utilized from the clouds. So, employees can access and install services on their devices from almost any location.

High availability

The provider offers round-the-clock operation of its services. The level of availability is specified in the service level agreement (SLA). The SLA prescribes the percentage of service availability for a certain period for a month, for instance. In case of a violation of the SLA, the supplier pays compensation to the customer.

Scalability

The XaaS model allows you to quickly scale up the business when facing an unexpected increase in demand. It frees up management resources to allow organizations to devote themselves to business and its growth, rather than infrastructure.

Flexible virtualization capabilities allow for quick scaling of your IT infrastructure, i.e. to do the following: increase the number of processor cores and network interfaces, upgrade RAM and disk space, and more.

Profitability

The customer doesn’t need to purchase, maintain or update their own equipment, licenses for it, etc. Only the utilized volume of cloud resources is paid for. Based on this, the customer reduces expenses on a number of business processes:

• Minimizing initial investment. The customer pays for the monthly rent of a virtual server and immediately starts leveraging it in their business activity. This is ten times cheaper than purchasing your own server.
• Savings on IT staff. Setting up and ensuring the operability of rented cloud servers is carried out by the service provider.
• Minimizing the risk of investment loss. The cost of purchasing your own server and its software may not pay off. But renting a cloud server is not a long-term investment: if there is no need to use computing power, then the contract can be terminated.
• Reducing the cost of providing high availability and server fault tolerance. The costs of ensuring high availability and fault tolerance on one’s own are comparable to the costs spent on purchasing the servers themselves.
• Reducing computing power costs. Due to the flexibility and scalability of the rented service, additional cloud memory, disk space, additional processors can be implemented if needed.
• Minimizing the cost of ensuring security. There is no need for guards or video surveillance, so companies can reduce their expenses on ensuring the security of servers and the data stored in them.

Automatic Updates

Any developer experienced in major software applications is aware of frequent updates and add-ons. With the old-fashioned purchase/ownership model, this meant an added expenditure on a regular basis. Fortunately for XaaS customers, infrastructure is scaled automatically, thus reducing time and money for checking, installing, and rolling out to employees.

Safety

All customer data is stored in protected and reserved repositories connected to a network of physical and virtual servers. All equipment is located in reliable data centers with a high level of disaster recovery. Apart from equipment, the provider retains the communication channels and power supply of the data center.

Migration

The high availability of the cloud, great scalability, cost-effectiveness, and security make migration to the cloud an attractive idea not only for small businesses whose business is not related to IT but also for large companies.

The customer can move their IT infrastructure to the cloud in part or in full. At the same time, the transfer can be carried out without interruption in communication and downtime, having been previously tested. Even a complete migration of a large infrastructure can be done in just a few days.

Expertise and Support

The supplier accompanies the cloud project at all stages of implementation from - infrastructure deployment to maintenance and support 24/7/365. Customer service is managed not by one IT specialist, but by a team of qualified engineers.

Types of XaaS Business

Guided by the benefits mentioned earlier, more and more businesses go in for cloud services. The future of cloud technologies has just begun but there are already numerous services offered by providers. Although their number is huge, we will list 7 cloud business models:

PaaS (Platform as a Service)

Platform as a service (PaaS) is a complete development and deployment environment in the cloud, with resources that enable you to deliver everything from simple cloud-based apps to sophisticated, cloud-enabled enterprise applications.

The advantages of this business type include:

• The client can focus on creating and developing the product. The PaaS provider is responsible for the health of the IT infrastructure and underlying software;
• No need to hire specialists to support the platform;
• Fast project start-up and dynamic resource scalability;
• High fault tolerance of the server.

SaaS (Software as a Service)

SaaS applications are simply software applications that are provided over the internet rather than as desktop applications. By incorporating this model into your business, you reap the following benefits:

• The speed of integration into the current infrastructure is much higher;
• SaaS is a cross-platform service, i.e. it doesn’t depend on the software and hardware of the consumer;
• Accessing a SaaS application only requires a browser and internet connection, allowing users to log in from anywhere.

DaaS (Data as a Service)

DaaS is a data management strategy that uses the cloud to provide storage, integration, processing, and/or analytics services over a network connection. The major advantages that make businesses go in for this solution include:

• DaaS identifies the best and cleanest methodology and timing for gathering data and collecting insights;
• Since data service is the single update point, tracking data changes is easier which can lead to data quality improvements;
• DaaS increases the speed to access the necessary data by exposing the data in a flexible but simple way.

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is a type of cloud computing service that offers essential compute, storage, and networking resources on demand

The major reasons why businesses select this model are as follows:

• IaaS makes it quick and economical to set up or dismantle development and test environments;
• IaaS provides all the infrastructure to support web apps, including storage, web and application servers, and networking resources, which allows for scaling and speeding new app deployment;
• IaaS eliminates the cost of configuring and managing a physical data center.

IaaS is suitable if the company has surges in demand. As the load increases, you can immediately get additional computing power. And when the load drops, you can return to the planned capacity of consumption

Building a complex IaaS infrastructure in the cloud for large projects may require the help of a provider with migration and administration. To monitor and manage critical indicators, prevent and correct failures, it is better to seek competent specialists for better results. If you consider the implementation of the IaaS model into your business, our experienced team is eager to provide you with all the information and help embed it.

AaaS (Analytics as a Service)

AaaS offers a fully customized data analytics platform for in-cloud data analysis on a subscription fee basis. Its objectives are the same as for on-premise solutions, i.e. to provide information that can be used to make better decisions. But its advantageous feature is that AaaS provides access to the benefits of data analysis without the need for one s own Data Warehouse and a full team of Data Scientists.

FaaS (Function as a Service)

FaaS opens the possibility of serverless execution of code, which allows developers to write and update it on the fly. The code will be launched as a response to an event, for example, when a user will click on an item in the web app. This makes it much easier to scale code and implement microservices.

With FaaS, the physical hardware, virtual machine operating system, and web server software management are all handled automatically by your cloud service provider. This allows developers to spend more time writing application logic and less time worrying about servers and deploys.

NaaS (Network as a Service)

Network-as-a-service (NaaS) is a cloud service model in which customers rent networking services from a cloud vendor instead of setting up their own network infrastructure. NaaS can replace hardware-centric VPNs, load balancers, firewall appliances, and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) connections.

Along with the obvious upsides shared by all cloud services, NaaS makes it possible for a single provider to offer both networking services and security services like firewalls. This results in tighter integration between the network and network security.

Final Tips

To bolster a business successfully with XaaS, customers should also keep a close eye on the following points

1. Check the financial capabilities of the market, their impact on the business and its customers. Formulate XaaS use cases and a step-by-step plan to make sure your new product strategy leads to an increase in margins
2. Engage different people in your network as it is now more expansive and can attract a wider range of people. Your products and platform should be intuitive, engaging, and easy to use for any audience
3. Ensure security and privacy. Before you can make more of your APIs public or open the source code, you must first ensure that sensitive data is protected. And every API you open must go through rigorous testing
4. Customers are now demanding 24/7 service, and businesses should be prepared for that. Thus, businesses are to provide the best customer service possible and respond intuitively to customer requests
5. Stimulate changes in company culture. The transition to a XaaS model will be successful only if it’s accepted and supported by all teams inside a company

The Takeaway

XaaS delivery model offers many benefits to any organization keeping a careful eye on speeding business processes, improving expenses, and mitigating cybersecurity risks. So, if your company uses any level of IT services, then it is worth investigating how XaaS can help you.

If you are planning to develop your product with the use of the anything-as-aservice business model, you are welcome to consult Modsen specialists. Our technology experts will provide you with quality advice and service focusing on your business specificities and goals