Doug Allen Blog: Hey, What Exactly Is 'Everything as a Service' Anyway?

It seems like the official new buzz word of 2010 is Everything-as-a-Service, or EaaS for short. Makes sense, since cloud services can often seem like pretty much the only thing the telecom world is talking about. But I can’t figure out exactly what EaaS is … or isn’t.

Vendors like HP and Cisco and providers like Verizon Business are quick to drop the acronym; witness Verizon Business’ field trials of Cisco’s unified communications and coloration services from the cloud, part of its drive toward an EaaS model. But looking at the fine print, it’s hard to find anything that distinguishes such an offering from the three basic types of cloud services (Infrastructure-, Platform-, and Software-as-a-Service; sometimes known as the SPI model) we all know and (are learning to?) love. In other words, EaaS seems to be more of an umbrella term, rather than something more than the sum of its parts.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It just helps to distinguish between marketing terminology and a new technology. To be sure, cloud services are still maturing, in terms of functionality, business models, user acceptance … you name it. And there are other hosted applications emerging under the cloud services/computing banner, like storage-, communications-, network-, and monitoring-as-a-service. So the definition, if not the concept, is still evolving.

“I think you are right on target with the description of ‘everything-as-a-service’ as being a superset of all cloud services,” said Amy DeCarlo, principal analyst at Current Analysis. “What I believe Verizon and others who use the phrase are hoping to do is position themselves as having a highly flexible portfolio that provides businesses with an easier way to consume services.

“One thing that is interesting is that in describing their approach[es] using a phrase like ‘everything-as-a-service,’ they can get away from the cloud terminology a bit. This allows them to differentiate themselves and also gives them some freedom to deliver services that adhere to some of the strict definitions of the cloud (pooled resources, pay-per-drink pricing models, etc.).”

So “EaaS” may be an example of shrewd marketing, allowing these players to position themselves as one-stop shops for any and all services, without using the “cloud” word that so many network managers find both appealing and scary, or at least risky.

On the other hand, the Verizon trials do point to how providers might combine multiple cloud services into business applications for the end user; after all, Verizon could deliver a high-level application like unified communications over its network, or it could extend the offer by layering additional services, like Infrastructure- or Software-as-a-Service, over that application, with its own multi-layered security baked in.
Now that would certainly qualify as a quantum leap in hosted service capabilities, allowing customers to quickly and dynamically enhance or modify the initial application much more broadly and powerfully than before. It would also pose a major challenge for systems integrators and VARs as they try to make all these disparate moving parts play nicely together. But it would be a major opportunity for them as well.

In the end, that may be the true value of EaaS; finding ways to combine services and applications in new ways that effectively rewrite the way companies use technology to drive their business. Even if it’s not a new technology in its own right. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.