science

IT as a service

IT as a service is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand IT as a service rather than just read about it. In short: IT as a service (ITaaS) is an operational model where the information technology (IT) service provider delivers an information technology service to a business. The IT service provider can be an internal IT organization or an external IT services company.

Key takeaways

IT as a service belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect IT as a service to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of IT as a service from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

IT as a service (ITaaS) is an operational model where the information technology (IT) service provider delivers an information technology 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 (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 companies and public cloud 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 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 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 (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (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. ITaaS is not a technology shift - such as a move to increase the use of virtualization. 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 as defined in ITIL.

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 (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" 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.

See also Desktop outsourcing as a service

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with IT as a service

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what IT as a service claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to IT as a service before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about IT as a service ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of IT as a service

In research: IT as a service appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses IT as a service in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: IT as a service is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics As a service, Information technology management, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for IT as a service outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study IT as a service in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what IT as a service means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain IT as a service out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is IT as a service in simple terms?

Why does IT as a service matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study IT as a service?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on IT as a service.