Is Everyone an aaS?

There has been a lot of name calling among cloud vendors and a lot of cloud vendors have
been calling other vendors aaSs by defining them into three specific categories. They seem
to be making an aaS of themselves in the process. In my opinion trying to fit all cloud
vendors into one aaS hole doesn’t seem to fit. The common way of calling a cloud vendor an
aaS is as follows:

• Software as a Service
(Salessforce.com)

• Platform as a Service
(Google App Engine …)

• Infrastructure as a Service
(Amazon EC2 …)

The problem I have with this list is that it it assumes all cloud vendors are aaSs and this
seems like a dumb aaS assumption. I have talked to the guys over at CohesiveFT and I can
assure you they are not an aaS. I don’t know the guys over at rPath , but based on what I
have heard, I don’t think they are an aaS either. 3Tera is not an aaS; however, the guys
over at GridLayer who host 3Tera’s Applogic might be an aaS. Google acts like an aaS
sometimes and no one can dispute that. Now I am not going to call IBM an aaS as they are
my bread-n-butter; however, some might say their little aaS Blue Cloud seems to missing a
lot of information and calling it an aaS might be a little bit asinine. There is a lot of buzz on
a new open source cloud solution called Eucalyptus from the University of California that
provides software for an elastic computing architecture. I am not sure we want to call a
prestigious bunch like the University of California a bunch of aaSs. Also, what about the fat
aaS vendors like Rightscale, Elastra, and Enomaly who are providing an aaS that sits on top
of another aaS (ouch). What kind of aaS’s are they? We have all heard of some of the
problems Amazon has had with their aaS, and I have heard they are working really hard to
wipe all of their dangling items clean from their aaS. It is my belief that there is a huge
difference between an exposed aaS facing a customer vs. an aaS that is clothed behind
something like a private aaS. Exposing your aaS in public might not be for everyone. In the
end, there are a lot of hard working cloud vendors and simply calling them all as aaSs
seems like an aaS backward assumption.
Remember, when you assume that everyone is an aaS, you make an aaS out of you and
me.

johnmwillis.com