Ever wonder what all the "aaS" acronyms mean? Do you want to understand how they relate to each other? This blog entry will help. I have created a map of many of the "as a Service" terms you will see in IT and have grouped them according to category. I have also provided an explanation and links for further reading for each so you can quickly come up to speed on all.
I put this together because I am working on the second edition of a visual map of the SaaS, PaaS, and Cloud Computing industries that I released last month. In order to make progress on that map, I found I needed to have a better understanding of all of the common categories in the "as a Service" market. The map in this blog entry has a different focus - instead of mapping out industry players I am mapping out industry terminology. Both maps complement each other.
Map of the "as a Service" Terms
This graphic shows the groupings of the "as a Service" terms that you may encounter in the IT industry. Click the map for a larger view.
Top Level IT Service Categories
This section lists the primary categories around computing as a service. These categories serve as the larger buckets into which we will place the finer grained "as a Service" terms.HaaS
Hardware as a Service- What: HaaS refers to on demand offerings where hardware is the primary product being offered
- Cloud Computing and Cloud Storage solutions are instances of HaaS
- Almost all HaaS products will require some bit of software as well
- Michael Vizard: Hardware As A Service Is Inevitable
- James Governor: On Hardware As A Service, engines as services, and Real SOA
- What: service offerings that primarily require humans beings to deliver (aka professional services)
- Not an industry term, but necessary to properly categorize some of the "as a Service" offerings
- OK, I don't mean prostitution wise guy
PaaS
Platform as a Service- What: hosted software that serves as a platform for building SaaS offerings
- There are different types of PaaS products, and sometimes HaaS products are mistakenly called PaaS
- Some PaaS products may be optionally deployed on HaaS products such as Amazon's EC2
- Examples of PaaS: force.com, Bungee Connect, Google App Engine, Etelos, QuickBase, LongJump, Apprenda SaaSGrid
SaaS
Software as a Service- What: in its most generic form, any software offered remotely as a service. Since this definition includes the entire world wide web, there are generally agreed on criteria for SaaS products to narrow the scope:
- Primarily business software
- Usage based pricing (pay as you go) with no long term contracts
- Delivered over the internet, primarily via a browser
- Managed by the ISV that developed the application (as opposed to the former ASP model)
- Wikipedia: SaaS
- Alternate form: Microsoft has pushed the term "S+S", which is a SaaS solution paired with on-premise software
List of "as a Service" Terms
This section lists many terms you will find referring to a "as a Service" offering in the IT industry. They are organized by acronym - sometimes the same acronym may refer to multiple terms. For each term, a few links are provided for further reading.BaaS:
Backup as a Service- Category: HaaS, a subtype of Storage as a Service
- What: provides rem0te data backup for your systems; a specific type of Storage as a Service
- Perimeter Security: Perimeter eSecurity Launches Remote Backup & Recovery (RBR) Service
CaaS:
Communications as a Service- Category: SaaS
- What: non carrier-grade VOIP service offered by a third party
- Wikipedia: Communication as a Service
- Tom Keating: Gartner says Communications-as-a-Service (CaaS) Revenue Future Looks Bright
- Andrew R. Hickey: Communications-as-a-Service taking hold
- Category: Humans as a Service
- What: the idea (perhaps faulty) that a company can outsource their compliance monitoring to a third party
- Mark Macauley : CaaS - Compliance as a Service
- Ian Glazer: Why Compliance Cannot be Delivered as a Service
- Category: SaaS (note it may directly employ Storage as a Service for the actual storage of the docs)
- What: offering a hosted content repository, including workflow, versioning, checkin/checkout
- Category: SaaS anti-pattern
- What: hosted services to help criminals attack computer systems
- Panda Security: Crimeware as a Service (CaaS) Updated
- Larry Dignan: The next big thing? Crimeware-as-a-service
- Category: HaaS
- What: aka Cloud Computing, providing computing resources, network, provisioning, etc as a service
- Ephraim Schwartz: Verizon to offer CaaS, computing as a service, later this year
- Category: SaaS
- What: offering CRM in a SaaS model, as in Salesforce, Netsuite, RightNow, SugarOnDemand
- Intuit Enhances QuickBase CRM-as-a-Service Entry
- Nobody is using the acronym CRMaaS yet, but it is probably inevitable
DaaS:
Data as a Service- Category: SaaS
- What: a hosted web service that provides access to aggregated data (stock market, salary, etc)
- Jill Dyche: Data-as-a-service, explained and defined
- Lars Leckie: DaaS - Data as a Service
- Strikeiron: Data as a Service
- Category: SaaS
- What: a cloud based data analytics solution, just upload your data and the service will crunch it
- The Register: And now it's time for Data Warehouses as a Service
- Kognitio: Data Warehousing as a Service
- A synonym of Data Warehousing as a Service
- Jeff Kaplan: Data Mining as a Service: The Prediction is Not in the Box
- Category: HaaS, a subtype of Storage as a Service
- What: offering a database (relational or not) as a hosted service, a subtype of Storage as a Service
- Doug Henschen: Q&A With Gartner's Don Feinberg on Database as a Service and Cloud DBs
- Steve Bobrowski: What Exactly Is Database as a Service?
- Longjump: Database-as-a-Service (DaaS)
- Category: PaaS
- What: a cloud based IDE, allowing developers to build applications with just a browser
- SFDC: Salesforce.com To Offer DaaS Service, New Pricing Model, Competition
- Category: SaaS
- What: providing virtual employee desktops via a remote host
- IDC: DaaS Interview - Mike Rose, IDC Analyst
- Desktone: Virtualization Meets DaaS - Desktop-as-a-Service
- Saloob: Saloob, Inc., releases world's first on-demand DAAS Solution - Desktop As A Service Thin Clients.
- Synonym of Content as a Service
- SpringCM: Document Management as a Service
EaaS:
Ethernet as a Service- Category: HaaS
- What: a solution provided by network carriers to provide virtual ethernet capacity from a much larger line
- SearchTelecom.com: Ethernet as a service (EaaS)
- Category: SaaS
- What: offering ERP in a SaaS model
- Michael Hickins: Workday Introduces ERP as a Service
- Category: SaaS
- What: a hosted email service
- Email As a Service: Much Bettter Than Hosting Email On YOUR Server
- Andrew Conry-Murray: Voltage's E-mail Encryption as a Service
HaaS
Human Resources as a Service (HRaaS), Human Capital Management as a Service (HCMaaS)- These terms are not used yet, but probably coming soon to a Workday blog near you
IaaS
Information as a Service- A synonym to Data as a Service
- Webinar: Implementing Information-As-A-Service: A Practical Approach
- TechTarget: Oracle-Tangosol deal may lead to a new service-enabled data package
- Guy Creese: Information as a Service
- A synonym to HaaS
- Wikipedia: Infrastructure as a Service
- Dan Farber: Infrastructure as a Service video
- Category: SaaS
- What: offering integration capabilities for SaaS applications
- Dr. Dobb's: MuleOnDemand Integration-as-a-Service
- Gartner: Cape Clear Updates ESB to Enable Integration as a Service
- Category: SaaS, a subtype of Security as a Service
- What: offering a centralized (remote) identity management service
- Nishant Kaushik of Oracle: Defining Identity as a Service
- Burton Group: Identity as a Service
MaaS
Malware as a Service- Category: SaaS anti-pattern
- What: name for any SaaS solution which has been compromised with malware
- Nicholas Carr: Malware as a service
- Dan Morrill: Malware as a Service
- Category: None - not related to IT (included here only for reference)
- What: providing small batch manufacturing services
- Manufacturing as a Service (MaaS)
- Category: SaaS
- What: enterprise mashups that are offered publicly
- Joe Mckendrick: Can Mashups as a Service reach critical MaaS?
- Category: SaaS, a subtype of Data as a Service
- What: providing hosted access to audio/visual services
- Chris Saad: MaaS - Media as a Service
QaaS
Queue as a Service- Category: SaaS, a subtype of Integration as a Service
- What: provides a hosted message delivery service
- Amazon: Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS)
SaaS
Security as a Service- Category: SaaS
- What: the delivery of security capabilities using a SaaS model
- Wikipedia: Security as a Service
- Category: HaaS
- What: providing cloud based data storage capabilities
- WhatIs: What is Storage as a Service
- Amazon: Simple Storage Service (S3)
TaaS
Testing as a Service- Category: Humans as a Service
- What: outsourcing the testing of software
- TAAS Services
UaaS
UI as a Service- Category: PaaS, a subtype of Development as a Service
- What: a rich hosted UI development environment
- Salesforce: Visualforce is a UI as a Service
VaaS
Voice as a Service- A synonym for Communication as a Service
- M5 Voice as a Service
Everything Else
Confused? Think all of these acronyms and terms are ridiculous? You aren't the first.In recognition of the proliferation of "aaS" terms, umbrella terms have also appeared:
- XaaS: What is xAAS?
- Everything as a Service
- Whatever as a Service
- Something as a Service
Previous Acronym Round Ups:
This isn't the first attempt at rounding up all the XaaS variants. You can find previous attempts here:- Krissi Danielsson: Attack of the -aaS Acronyms, or a Quick Glossary of SaaS Cousins
- Nick Carr: A little too much aaS
11 comments:
Peter - Thanks for creating these useful naming frameworks. The rapid explosion of "... as a Service" has lead to a desperate need for organization. You are the man!
Please add to your list :
Search as a Service by SearchBlox on Amazon EC2.
Peter, thanks for commenting on my most recent blog entry. I wanted to read and post a comment on yours in return.
I like that you've created an extensive taxonomy. I think it generally helps the conversation. My concern is that it's easy to get lost in the soup.
That's why I lean towards thinking that aaS is over-saturated. In reading your article I'm left feeling that anything that can be outsourced and delivered as a service, in any form can be aaS.
Which was the main thrust of my article: cloud services are basically 'web services' outside the firewall, not SaaS. SaaS is fundamentally different.
'Web services' are usually fairly simple services, but I do think it can encompass messaging/queuing (a la Amazon's SQS) or even databases (e.g. Amazon's SimpleDB or Microsofts new Data Services). I think you mostly agree when you say one of the requirements is "Primarily business software". I wouldn't identify database or queuing software as business software. I would identify them as infrastructure software.
In my mind, Salesforce.COM and related are typical of the SaaS crowd, being fully baked applications that provide an end-to-end user experience and focus on UI and user interface-based use cases.
In contrast, queuing, databases, etc. might have a management interface, but are inherently machine-consumed. And that's really the difference. By lumping in Cloud Services with hosted applications (SaaS) we muddy the waters too much. While they are both software, they aren't designed, used, or consumed in the same manner. That should be a key criteria in differentiating these offerings. How they are consumed.
Keep them coming. I added you to my RSS list so I won't miss any more. ;)
--Randy
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Ps.
Just a bit of a nitpick, BTW. I realize this is just semantics, but I think words are important and 'hardware as a service' doesn't make sense to me.
For me 'cloud computing' can't ever be in the 'hardware as a service' category. You aren't getting hardware as a service, you're getting an OS on-demand. The hardware is not in the picture. In that same way, 'cloud storage' (using S3 as an example) isn't disks either. It's files. If it were disks on demand Amazon would actually surface a block device to the customer.
At least, that's what I would assume if I heard 'hardware as a service'. In this particular case I like 'infrastructure as a service' better.
Another reason I mention this is that I know of folks actually working on hardware as a service offerings and I think they will fit more cleanly into this category than EC2/S3. Just my $0.02. ;)
Randy - thanks for the thoughtful response (and sorry for the delay in my follow up).
I think you bring up a couple of intersting points:
1) there is a natural dividing line between human consumed and computer consumed SaaS solutions
2) hardware as a service is misleading, as what is exposed to the user is not hardware constructs (disk blocks)
Both interesting points. As for #1, I wasn't too happy with my division of front, mid, back office buckets. I think you might have the better solution.
As for #2, I am focusing more on what people are paying for (use of hardware) as opposed to what the API looks like to access it. Take Twitter for example, it ultimately offers Messaging as a Service regardless how to interact with it: their web site, Adobe AIR client, raw API, etc.
Thanks for the comment!
I'm maintaining a Wikipedia article on the subject of everything as a service with a view to capturing the common elements of the aaSy offerings (utility billing, low barriers to entry, etc.).
That's not to say that I approve of this terminology... it's an absolute mess (especially when you start looking into the trademarks; see Sanity as a service: marketing gone mad). Rather I'm pushing for simply: Cloud applications, Cloud services, Cloud infrastructure, Cloud platforms, etc.
See the Wikipedia cloud computing article for more on this.
Whats your opinion on how XaaS and all underlying aaS fits with virtualisation?
Is virtualisation encompassed by any of the aaS?
Virtualization is not seen as an XaaS by itself, but can be (but is not required) a useful tool to provide an aaS service. For example, a SaaS accounting application may be hosted using a VM per customer (referred to as the single tenant model).
Hi,
Your diagram helps in understanding how each AAS falls in a more general class.
Out of which what interests me is Backoffice where SECAAS and IDAAS are specified . I want to clarify whether IDAAS extends SECAAS or both help in extending a Security branch.
Thanks,
Regards.
How about AaaS - Acronyms as a Service? I'm a-gonna patent that one, gonna make me rich.
How about, "BaMtDaaS" - "Beating a Meme to Death as a Service"?
Peter - Thank-you for an interesting and fun post. I happened to notice your "Ian Glazer: Why Compliance Cannot be Delivered as a Service" link is going to the wrong url. Again, your article is much appreciated.
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