IT as a service (ITaaS) is an operational model where the

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...

(IT) service provider delivers an

service to a business. The IT service provider can be an internal IT organization or an external IT services company. The recipients of ITaaS can be a

line of business Line of business (LOB) is a general term which refers to a product or a set of related products that serve a particular customer transaction or business need. In some industry sectors, like insurance, "line of business" also has a regulatory and ac ...

(LOB) organization within an enterprise or a small and medium business (SMB). The information technology is typically delivered as a managed service with a clear IT services catalog and pricing associated with each of the catalog items. At its core, ITaaS is a competitive business model where businesses have many options for IT services and the internal IT organization has to compete against those other external options in order to be the selected IT service provider to the business. Options for providers other than the internal IT organization may include IT

outsourcing Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...

companies and

public cloud Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over multi ...

providers. Under an ITaaS model, the IT service provider will place great emphasis on the needs and the outcomes required by the business to improve employee productivity and improving the top line (revenue) and bottom line (profitability). Such services will have a deep industry focus to fully enable industry specific use cases. The benefits to the business sought by using the ITaaS model include the

standardization Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization ...

and simplification of products delivered by IT, improved financial transparency and more direct association of costs to consumption, and increased IT operational efficiency resulting from the need to compare the price of internally produced products to those available from external providers. The transformation of an internal IT organization from operating as a cost-center to an ITaaS model is also believed to produce improved levels of

business agility Business agility refers to rapid, continuous, and systematic evolutionary adaptation and entrepreneurial innovation directed at gaining and maintaining competitive advantage. Business agility can be sustained by maintaining and adapting the goods an ...

for the enterprise as a whole.

Not a cloud service model

According to ''The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing'', there are three service models associated with cloud computing:

infrastructure as a service The first major provider of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) was Amazon in 2008. IaaS is a cloud computing service model by means of which computing resources are supplied by a cloud services provider. The IaaS vendor provides the storage, net ...

(IaaS),

platform as a service Platform as a service (PaaS) or application platform as a service (aPaaS) or platform-based service is a category of cloud computing services that allows customers to provision, instantiate, run, and manage a modular bundle comprising a computin ...

(PaaS), and

software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is con ...

(SaaS). The concept of ITaaS as an operating model is not limited to or dependent on cloud computing. Several proponents of ITaaS as an operating model will insist that the ability for an IT organization to deliver ITaaS is enabled by underlying technology models such as IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. Vendors who are proponents of the concept of ITaaS as an operating model include EMC, Citrix, and VMware.VMware ''Start your Journey to the Cloud''
/ref> ITaaS is not a technology shift - such as a move to increase the use of

virtualization In computing, virtualization or virtualisation (sometimes abbreviated v12n, a numeronym) is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something at the same abstraction level, including virtual computer hardware platforms, stor ...

. Rather, it is an operational and organizational shift to running IT like a business and optimizing IT production for business consumption. IT organizations that adopt ITaaS are most likely to use the best practices for

IT service management Information technology service management (ITSM) is the activities that are performed by an organization to design, build, deliver, operate and control information technology (IT) services offered to customers. Differing from more technology-or ...

as defined in

ITIL The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of detailed practices for IT activities such as IT service management (ITSM) and IT asset management (ITAM) that focus on aligning IT services with the needs of business. ITIL de ...

Transformation to IT as a service

Several vendors who are proponents of ITaaS describe the transition of an IT organization to the ITaaS model as a journey which includes the adoption of such models as: *New technology models founded on the use of private, public, and hybrid clouds; employing controls, trust and compliance up and down the stack; introducing infrastructure standardization and automation wherever possible. *New consumption models leveraging self-service catalogs offering both internal and external services; providing IT financial transparency for costs and pricing; offering consumerized IT – such as

bring your own device Bring your own device (BYOD )—also called bring your own technology (BYOT), bring your own phone (BYOP), and bring your own personal computer (BYOPC)—refers to being allowed to use one's personally owned device, rather than being required to u ...

(BYoD) – to meet the needs of users. All of which simplify and encourage consumption of services. *New operational models which imply a revised organization, with new business and technical skills and roles; creation of more horizontal, service-oriented processes; explicit IT alignment with lines-of-business. *Business driven IT solution is represented as a repeatable business activity having a specified outcome, wherein service acts as a self-contained logical unit, may be composed of other services (choreography), is generally a "

black box In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a system which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs (or transfer characteristics), without any knowledge of its internal workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). The te ...

" to typical consumers while highly transparent to leadership. * Can include services such as fractional CIO for the business, whereby fiduciary duty is to the client.

References

{{reflist As a service Information technology management __FORCETOC__

Not a cloud service model

Transformation to IT as a service

See also

References