Techno-Babble Dictionary: Sassy

By Naomi Dolin-Aubertin
This week's words have to do with those pesky up down and up again acronyms pertaining to IT services. As if acronyms weren't confusing enough! It's like that annoying phase teenagers go through where they write everything like ThIs. At least we aren't dotting our i's with flowers or hearts.

SaaS: Software as a Service is the opposite of traditional software you buy and download onto your machine. The premise behind Software as a Service is to eliminate the need for you to continuously install updates within your organization. Instead, your managed service provider hosts the applications which you access over a network. Sort of like getting your fresh milk delivered to your doorstep.

Benefits of the SaaS model include:

• Easier administration
• Automatic updates and patch management
• Compatibility: all users will have the same version of software
• Easier collaboration, for the same reason
• Global accessibility

SaaS aims to make IT easy for the average end user.

IaaS: When you talk about moving to the cloud, you are essentially talking about virtualizing your hardware (infrastructure). Infrastructure as a Service eliminates your server room and allows you access to "virtual server space, network connections," etc. over an internet connection that is managed and maintained by your managed service provider. Infrastructure as a Service gives your business scalability and cuts IT costs significantly.

PaaS: Platform as a Service is between the two.While SaaS is geared primarily towards an average user in your company and IaaS is the infrastructure that supports the pyramid, PaaS allows you to build applications to support your business. It is a coding tool.

For example, Microsoft's Windows Azure gives you tools to develop mobile apps, social apps, websites, games and more. You build these things, but you use the APIs and tools to hook them into the Azure environment and run them there.

Platform as a Service gives you the freedom to develop your own applications while utilizing the tools and infrastructure provided by the network.

Now you'll know what the "...as a service" revolution is all about.