There are so many different kinds of businesses these days. Some still manufacture physical products and sell them at brick-and-mortar locations or through an eCommerce business model. Other companies offer services in the digital world and make no physical products, but their business model still works perfectly well.
Regardless of which of these models your company follows, you might decide that you need to look into DaaS. This is a concept that can confuse some people, but it’s not as baffling as it sounds. We’ll break down what DaaS is in this article, and we’ll also talk about when your company is most likely to need it.
What does DaaS mean?
We’ll talk about things like managed DaaS on Azure in a moment, but first, let’s make sure you comprehend what the term means. DaaS stands for data as a service. You can regard it as an offshoot of SaaS, or software as a service.
DaaS is a computing term. The basic concept is as follows: let’s say your company needs cloud-based software tools. You use them to work with large data amounts.
Maybe you’re managing that data in a digital warehouse or perhaps you’re analyzing it for business intelligence. It could be that a company hired you because they want you to interpret huge data amounts. Based on your findings, that company can determine whether they should discontinue certain products or make a particular population segment the target of a multi-million-dollar ad campaign.
If you also provide software as a service or SaaS, that essentially means you’re renting a software suite to the company that is your client. SaaS and DaaS often go hand in hand. If you have a company as your client that needs one, it usually follows that they’ll want the other as well.
Why get SaaS instead of just buying a software suite?
Software as a service is attractive for some companies because if they rent the software suite their employees use, the company that creates it can handle all of the updates when they come out. As a business, you want to have your software updated at all times because outdated software is more prone to malicious hacker attacks.
Also, if newer versions of the software suite come out, the entity you’re paying has an IT department that can handle all those updates themselves. You do not need to hire IT professionals, thereby saving the company money that you can allocate elsewhere.
How does DaaS come in?
As for data as a service, if you have SaaS already, and you’re a company that needs access to enormous data amounts, that can be yours if you get these two services in tandem. Once you have DaaS, not only can you use all of that valuable data as you see fit, but you can also provide your employees with an entirely cloud-based workspace.
In other words, you don’t need them to come into a physical location, such as an office space you’re renting, and have them work from there on laptops or PCs that you provide for them. As long as they have Wi-Fi-enabled devices and a steady connection, they can work from home.
Since remote work has become immensely popular over the past few years, especially since the pandemic began, you’re likelier to retain your employees this way. You want that because you won’t have to keep hiring replacement workers and going through the tedious and time-consuming onboarding process.
What about managed DaaS on Azure?
You might hear some company heads talk about wanting DaaS because they can use it in conjunction with Azure. Azure is a popular Microsoft cloud computing service that many offices and businesses use. You can use it for managing applications and services, and also building, deploying, or testing those services.
Some companies now provide software programs that allow your business to combine Azure with DaaS elements. Many business entities find that to be incredibly convenient.
If you have a cloud infrastructure you’re already using and you implement a cloud service provider, you can work through a virtual desktop that has nearly infinite benefits. Mobile users, work-from-home users, and enterprise users can all utilize it.
This means that if your company is using Azure already, you should certainly consider looking into one of the DaaS options that exist today. There are some different ones that offer various features, so try a few out and determine which one makes the most sense.
