Everything as a service

Everything as a service(EaaS, XaaS, *aaS) is a concept of being able to call up re-usable, fine-grained software components across a network. It is a subset of cloud computing. The most common and successful example is software as a service (SaaS), but the term as a service has been associated and used with many core components of cloud computing including communication, infrastructure, data and platforms.

A number of vendors including Google, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Amido have been associated with the "everything as a service" trend.

Key characteristics

Offerings tagged with the as a service suffix have a number of common attributes, including:

• Low barriers to entry is a common method of offerings, with services typically being available to or targeting consumers and small businesses.
• Little or no capital expenditure as infrastructure is owned by the provider.
• Massive scalability is also common, though this is not an absolute requirement and many of the offerings have yet to achieve large scale.
• Multitenancy enables resources (and costs) to be shared among many users.
• Device independence enables users to access systems regardless of what device they are using (e.g. PC, mobile,...etc.).
• Location independence allows users remote access to systems.

Sub-categories

This kind of services can be divided into more specific types:

• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Related pages

• Cloud computing