IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) is a technology-delivery method that treats IT as a commodity, providing an enterprise with exactly the amount of hardware, software, and support that it needs .

1. Transformation to IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS)
By: Ahmed Banafa, Distinguished Tenured Staff | Faculty | SME | E-Learning Expert | Four-time
winner of instructor of the year award
IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) is a technology-delivery method that treats IT as a commodity,
providing an enterprise with exactly the amount of hardware, software, and support that it needs .
Benefits of ITaaS:
Minimal upfront IT investment
Speed time-to-value for new services and functionality
Increase agility by using standardized processes to meet emerging needs
Expert technical support
Scalability
Regular software upgrades and patches
Guarantee of up-to-date hardware
ITaaS Model
IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) vision for IT to become a modern service provider that offers and
orchestrates both internal and external IT services instead of organizing around traditional
technology silos. In this model, corporate IT offers a menu of SaaS (Software as a Service)
,PaaS (Platform as a Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service ) options for business users
via a centralized service catalog. Business users are free to pick and choose cloud services.

2. Elements of ITaaS
Software as a Service (SaaS) includes a complete software offering on the cloud. Users
can access a software application hosted by the cloud vendor on pay-per-use basis. This
is a well-established sector.
Platform as a Service (PaaS) involves offering a development platform on the cloud.
Platforms provided by different vendors are typically not compatible.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) involves offering hardware related services using the
principles of cloud computing. These could include some kind of storage services
(database or disk storage) or virtual servers.
Picture from leverhawk

3. Organizations serious about ITaaS transformation start with business users, applications and
services. They focus on answering fundamentally different questions that are out of the
traditional IT comfort zone like:
What services do our business users and developers want and need to drive innovation?
Is internal IT truly best positioned to deliver these services to users?
Can IT deliver these services at a market competitive price?
How will our processes and policies need to change to support the new services lifecycle?
The answers to these questions are what then drive the answers around delivery models and
platforms. User demand and needs that should drive the ITaaS services train, not infrastructure.
There’s no question that ITaaS offers tremendous potential benefits—by aggregating and
delivering all kinds of in-house and third-party apps and services through an all-encompassing
ITaaS architecture.
References
http://leverhawk.com/is-itaas-really-a-new-concept-20130628321
http://www.cloudave.com/31296/itaas-just-cloud/
http://www.citrix.com/articles-and-insights/cloud-networking/jan-2014/the-cloud-today-itaas-
tomorrow-future-proofing-your-network-architecture.html
blogs.technet.com/b/aviraj/archive/2011/02/27/resources-for-cloud-road-show-for-it-
professionals-it-managers.aspx