ESG

A collective phrase for the provision of any good or service , XaaS includes all of the many services , tools , and technology that manufacturers offer to consumers . The model – paid for in a flexible consumption model rather than in the form of an upfront purchase or licence – has a range of benefits , whether improving the expense model and speeding up new elements or allowing IT resources to be shifted to higher-value projects .

XaaS isn ’ t a new phenomenon , but as consumers move more workloads to the cloud , there are indications from manufacturers and researchers that XaaS will become an increasingly widely-used business model . Research by Spherical Insights suggests the global XaaS market could reach US $ 1.2tn by 2030 , caused by an increase in the number of internet users , the quick adoption of cloud services , and the production of more data by businesses .

As KPMG describes , over the last two decades , the ‘ as-a-Service ’ model has revolutionised how technology resources are provisioned and consumed .

“ From a consumption perspective , there has been a rapid migration to on-demand environments that can be provisioned through self-service , with elasticity to allow rapid scaling and ubiquitous availability via multiple access channels and with billing flexibility ,” KPMG says .

Moving to the cloud Utilising cloud infrastructure has a number of benefits . According to Oracle , by moving to the cloud , businesses can reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint by up to 90 %. Meanwhile , AWS says running business applications on remote servers can reduce energy usage by nearly 80 % and carbon emissions by up to 96 %.

Sustainability has increasingly become a core consideration for IT decision-makers when shaping their cloud strategies , with 74 % of respondents to a Colt survey

46 May 2023