In the digital era of modern times, almost everything is available online. You could shop for your dresses, order a smartphone, or even your furniture. Likewise, as you might be aware, the internet also helps you speed up your business, and this is where the word ‘cloud’ comes into the fray. At present, cloud computing is responsible for an enhanced number of services being delivered over the web instead of local or on-site platforms. Notably, Everything As A Service or XAAS is a collective term used to address all such types of cloud-based services. Primarily, it comprises:
- Software As A Service or SaaS: It assigns the task of software management and deployment to third-party service providers. Examples of SaaS applications include Salesforce, Google Apps, Dropbox, and more.
- Platform As A Service or PaaS: Built on top of virtualization technology, it provides a platform for the development and deployment of software. Common examples include Google App Engine, Heroku, and Red Hat’s OpenShift
- Infrastructure As A Service or IaaS: It allows for automated development and deployment of PaaS, SaaS, and web-scale applications. Prominent IAAS providers include Softlayer, Navisite, Exoscale, CompuNext, etc.
Besides, it also includes a whole lot of other services like:
- Infrastructure-as-a-service
- Platform-As-A-Service
- Desktop-As-A-Service
- Disaster Recovery-As-A-Service
- Healthcare-As-A-Service
- Storage-As-A-Service
- Marketing-As-A-Service
How could XaaS transform businesses?
The ‘Everything As A Concept’ is not only a business plan or a revenue generation method, it is, in fact, the operational and strategic blueprint of core modernization. It has helped big corporate houses of the likes of General Electric and Amazon to go for bold and fresh opportunities beyond their traditional models of doing business.
Not just the individuals or corporate people, the governments worldwide are also benefiting from this recent technological disruption. As obvious, the US government is no different. While Amazon has extended its internal services to customers, GE is slowly transforming from a manufacturer to the retailer of goods. GE’s transformation plan emphasizes largely on software-defined everything’ and ‘data as a revenue generator’. Hence, both have monetized their strategies to make way for enhanced business outcomes with the help of XaaS.
How could it help the US government?
The United States is among the foremost nations to embrace technological innovations with open arms. It has welcomed XaaS as well, which is evident by its collaboration with various IT organizations to accentuate the functioning of its departments. For instance, the AWS cloud is eager to provide cost-efficient and scalable solutions to the US Federal Government. This would help the latter to enable the Department of Defense and various Civilian agencies to reduce costs, ensure efficient processes, and enhance innovations.
Multiple cloud services
The company also provides the services of AWS GovCloud (US) Region (AWS Region) to meet the specific regulatory requirements of US government agencies along with education entities, and several other partners as well as customers.
The XaaS cloud infrastructure is also helpful for the government to store criminal justice information. Currently, AWS has also been participating in the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), which provides a standard approach to authorization, security assessment and persistent monitoring of cloud services and products.
Instead of buying licensed software the government could utilize various components of XaaS, such as SaaS to maintain time attendance records, enhance payroll system, improve human resource management, etc.
American Law Enforcement Network is already a 100% cloud-based software provider. It allows the officers and court personnel to utilize “in hand” technologies like internet web browsers, to access its robust, upscale and secure solutions from any location. This is a welcome respite over the traditional methods where the law enforcement agencies had to buy, build and maintain their own IT solutions. The law firms are prompt to switch over to this affordable, secure and flexible alternative to the traditional software.
Healthcare.gov
Yet again, AWS has been instrumental in providing its cloud services to the US government, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to be precise. The cloud service providing company helped the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to come up with a highly scalable and stable set of features for its websites. These cloud computation features are capable of handling thousands of users simultaneously during the peak periods of insurance signup
Concisely, Everything As A Service model deals with the providers that possess the ability to bring rich services to the end-user. It deviates from the earlier models that deal with products. Its contribution to the sophistication of the US government has also been immense, with the help of notable IT companies. There is however still a lot of scopes for the government to transform to XaaS in entirety. I hope it leverages the best of technological innovations.
