Xaas trap: all things serve (possible) is not what it really needs

Reading guide ： All things serve （XaaS） It should be a kind of will SOA How to extend to the enterprise . But actually ,XaaS Just another model of refund pricing —— That's exactly what it is. IT Unnecessary .

In the last few years , The saying that everything serves IT The field has become very popular .XaaS The concept , The acronym is “X” On behalf of everything IT service ,“aaS” It means providing on-demand services through the Internet IT service . in fact ,XaaS Is the essence of Cloud Computing .

However ,XaaS  The real thing to do is to nail the last nail on the coffin , It used to be IT An important part of the architecture , Turn it into a IT Charging algorithm . It sounds ridiculous , because XaaS  Even with IT irrelevant .

Only a short while ago , We are all concerned about infrastructure as a service （IaaS）、 Platform as a service （PaaS） And software as a service （SaaS） The definition and difference of . Now I want to understand ,XaaS In fact, it should be “ Application as a service  ”. After all , Many platforms are also software , This further obscures  PaaS  and  SaaS  The boundaries of .

without doubt , What you read about  XaaS  Most of the content of is as doubtful as the original definition .XaaS It is described as going only through the cloud IT Supporting applications , And charge according to the number of use .

Here, the author disagrees with the view that , Regardless of the initial X What's behind it , As a cloud service, the cost of on-demand payment is lower than the alternative ？

The truth of pay as you go

“ Pay by drink ” The cost of is lower than the cost of directly purchasing goods , This has been “ Spend money on drinks ” The economics of . for example , In an ordinary bar , A decent Bourbon may cost  10  dollar . If you buy the same bottle of Bourbon , The same bottle costs a few dollars at most .

therefore , From the perspective of beverages , The cost of paying per drink is several orders of magnitude higher than that of paying per bottle .

As shown in the figure below , The same logic applies to your users or real paying customers （ instead of “ Internal customers ”） Software services provided .

Figure note ： Cost comparison between cloud services and local services （ picture source ：ITC  Consulting limited liability company ）

As shown in the figure , When passing through the cloud （ The red arrow represents cloud services ） When configuring software services , Whether the cost is higher or lower than the local configuration （ Brown arrows represent local services ） It all depends on how many services the service users consume . The more cloud services are used , The worse the cloud economy . From a purely financial point of view , Compared with various cloud services , Local services are more scalable —— Just like the cost of getting drunk at home is lower than that of getting drunk in a bar .

But I also admit , Cloud based service delivery is more flexible , You can add... At any time , You can also reduce resources as needed . This is the biggest feature of cloud services . But the local service wants to reduce unnecessary at any time IT cost , It's challenging .

There is another point I don't agree with , Configuring through cloud services enables IT No indirect costs . This is not exactly true . such as , Put services in the cloud , You still need to monitor its performance and availability , Integrate it into your other services , Or regression test upgrade , All of these will increase the fixed cost of cloud services .

But compared with the fixed cost of configuring and managing the local service environment , The cost of cloud service configuration is small enough to be ignored in the analysis . therefore , The author accepts that the fixed cost of cloud services is low .

Again , For local services , Fixed costs are not really fixed . They are more like a stepped function ,IT Departments will successively increase the investment , Instead of completing the launch at one time .

XaaS The trap of

Just imagine , When cloud service fees are higher than the local service fees they are used to paying , When they hear that the cost of cloud is lower , How much cola do you think .

Through cloud services IT There are sufficient and legitimate reasons to support , Especially when IT Demand is highly variable 、 Unpredictable or need to come from different locations .

however , A lot of times ,XaaS  And most others  “ Namely service ”（aaS） The case of , It seems to be completely in line with the catchword , Not really important means to achieve the goal .