The Ongoing Evolution of Enterprise IT
The evolution of cloud-based services over the last decade has been profound. From SaaS (Software as a Service), the most popular cloud-based service, to PaaS (Platform as a Service), to IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), the cloud computing vendors have revolutionised the workplace. The model is mature and well tested; cloud vendors have pushed virtualisation and abstraction of every possible part of a traditional IT infrastructure. This has resulted in the morphing of products you can buy and pay, into a subscription-based services.
This evolution is ongoing. By leveraging the abstractions that SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS provide, you can utilise secure access to all your applications and data from anywhere. This serves our current needs well; with increasingly distributed teams demanding agile interactions with each other. The pinnacle of this cloud evolution journey is the Unified Workspace, which provides a central portal for the execution of any business-related task. A Unified Workspace grants combined access to all applications, data and content, and tools for collaboration. A Unified Workspace leverages the cloud vendor’s IAM policies, providing comprehensive identity management and the fine-tuned access control this supports alongside battle-tested security strategies.
Everything as a Service means Standing on the Shoulders of Giants to Create a Unified Workspace
A Unified Workspace brings together all On-premises and Cloud-based services into a coherent whole whilst removing the need for specialised technical knowledge. Let’s look at each component individually before focusing on what a unified approach can do for you.
On-Premises refers to a usage and license model for server-based computer programs (software). Until about 2010, local use of software was the norm and therefore had no special designation. Only since local use has increasingly been replaced by software as a service (SaaS) or cloud computing has the term off-premises emerged as an antonym.
SaaS is the provision of third-party applications, usually via the cloud. As most SaaS applications run directly through a web browser, they do not need to be installed on the client side. This model is economical because it eliminates the need to maintain competent IT staff to download and install applications on each individual end-user device. With SaaS, all potential technical issues are abstracted up to the vendor, with enterprise clients left uninhibited by issues around protecting and accessing data, middleware, or servers.
PaaS is a cloud model to deliver a framework for developers that they can build upon and use to create customised applications. All server maintenance, storage considerations, and networking issues are left to the cloud-provider leaving developers to focus on the development of the applications. The PaaS delivery model resembles SaaS, with the platform being accessed via the Internet; with issues such as managing operating systems, software updates, storage, or infrastructure abstracted back to the PaaS service provider.
Cloud infrastructure services, often known as IaaS comprise a set of highly-scalable and automated compute resources. IaaS enables users to self-serve all aspects of access to and monitoring of virtual machines (VMs), networking, storage, and other services. The economic benefits leveraged from IaaS are myriad, with businesses empowered by the on-demand purchase of resources while abstracting away all issues that surround buying, maintaining, and replacing hardware. IaaS delivers users the infrastructure, including the servers, network, operating systems, and storage, through virtualisation technology. Managing such fine-tuned control over the entire infrastructure does, however, require that your business hosts some very competent cloud engineers. IaaS cloud engineers are required to manage components such as provisioning VMs, applications, managing run-times, choosing operating systems and middleware, and managing back up of, and control access, to data. Customisation is also required to ensure that load balancing is effective and latency free.
What if your business wants to abstract away all the maintenance and customisation a fully integrated IaaS requires – so that you can concentrate on your core service?
The solution is robust – Everything as a Service (XaaS)
oneclick™ is committed to enabling clients to experience the automated deployment of everything. By simplifying uptake of services such as SaaS, IaaS and PaaS, Everything as a Service (XaaS) abstracts away all the issues that an internal team of cloud engineers would be required to solve. oneclick™ platform puts SaaS, IaaS and PaaS from any on-premises and cloud environment behind one web portal empowering you with XaaS.
Our Workspace in the Browser as a frontend tool enables central management and delivery of all resources. oneclick™ decouples the complete corporate network from the users while acting as a single point of authentication. The illustrated principle allows Bring your own Device and requires no endpoint management anymore due to highly-encrypted streaming. Our XaaS model provides all the native benefits of typical cloud instances – such as scaling up and down on-demand, with a monthly bill based on usage. Your employees experience a simple portal in the form of a Unified Workspace.
XaaS, Workplace Aggregators and the Unified Workspace
A Unified Workspace is a logical, robust, and secure solution for your changing workplace requirements – where work increasingly takes place from multiple locations across distributed teams. Unified workspaces provide greater productivity and employee satisfaction. They leverage cloud services enabling access to be entirely web-based and providing a central portal for the execution of tasks that are independent of the end device.
Part of the improved employee satisfaction experienced following the adoption of oneclick™ is due to the effective implementation of tools for Workspace aggregation. These allow any end-device to be used to access apps and data. With more than half the employees surveyed by Nintex, a global leader in workflow and content automation, complaining that their employer fails in their attempts to effectively provide access to the tools and documents that enable good job performance, it is imperative that businesses act to meet their employees’ expectations and enhance their productivity. This is especially true if you employ millennials, as nearly half will install an unsanctioned app if their IT issues are left unresolved which in turn fosters shadow IT.
Our Xaas approach ensures that all employees may access any software or data for which they have access rights, without any of the traditional IT-support issues. By applying tools for Workplace aggregation – the IT department can deliver all applications and data on PCs, tablets, and smartphones securely and in a controlled manner, providing the end-user with a smooth experience.
oneclick™’s XaaS Platform is a Successful Model
- Automated connection setup to any existing server location with segmentation at application level
- Via interfaces, directly create and mange new VMs in the data centers of well-known cloud providers
- Offer any app from any infrastructure source as SaaS via a shop system and marketplace with automated provisioning
- Fully personalised, secure web portal for access to all assigned apps across all platforms = Native Windows, Linux, MacOS & Web
Do you want to learn more?
If your business is looking to leverage the benefits of application streaming, with automated infrastructure provisioning and a single sign-on for a combination of web and native applications, then look no further than oneclick™ XaaS platform. Perhaps you want to significantly reduce the complexity and time to deploy and manage your work environments? Perhaps you are interested in leveraging the economies of scale that XaaS provides, or maybe you are looking for simple, robust technological enhancements to your legacy systems?
Whatever your needs, reach out to us at oneclick™, where we are committed to helping you provide all the applications and data that your employees need, quickly and securely.
