Communications as a Service vs. Containerisation as a Service

The War for CaaS

Communications as a Service, a middleware and software level as a Service, is abbreviated to CaaS.

I am currently working on my Software Defined Elastic Content Delivery Network (SDECDN) research paper.

Within this paper, I am loosely defining Containerisation as a Service, abbreviated to CaaS.

Containerisation as a Service will be part of another micro research paper, in which I am defining the hierarchical levels of "* as a Service" models and technology.

Communication as a Service strikes me as more of a subcategory of Software as a Service, which is abbreviated to SaaS. In my opinion, Communication as a Service should not necessarily be abbreviated to CaaS as it is not an integral part of the * as a Service stack.

The * as a Service stack is made up of (from bottom to top):

Network > Server Hardware > VE Host / Hypervisor > VM OS > Container > Software

Network + Server Hardware + VE Host / Hypervisor = Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

VM OS + Middleware = Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Container = Container as a Service (CaaS)

Software = Software as a Service (SaaS)

Container as a Service is an integral part of the * as a Service stack. It is due to the previous statement, my opinion is to make Container as a Service a part of the top level of * as a Service stack and give it the CaaS abbreviation.

Communication as a Service would no longer be classed as CaaS; however, it is a subcategory of SaaS. It is my opinion for Communication as a Service to be given the abbreviation ComaaS, pronounced com-as, not pronounced commas.

Wikipedia, all be it not a superbly reliable source, does have a wealth of collaboration, which often results in good lists. CaaS is no exception. Wikipedia has this list:

CaaS is an acronym for the following:

Car as a Service
Content as a Service
Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore
Communication as a service
Compiler as a service
Containers as a service
Cognitive Analytic Application Services
Common Aviation Architecture System, a common avionics package currently being rolled out into various United States Military aircraft.
Centre for Academic and Administrative Studies
Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services
Commerce as a Service
Confidentiality as a Service
Containers as a Service
Crimeware as a Service
Cloud as a Service, an IT offering that runs a Cloud Management Platform off-premises and deploys Virtual Servers to your data centre (Column Technologies)
Compliance as a Service
Charging as a Service
It looks like I may be fighting an already lost battle with so many * as a Service disciplines abbreviating themselves to CaaS.

Title image source: http://bizmology.hoovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/cloud-server-room.jpg from the article: http://bizmology.hoovers.com/2013/04/can-you-insure-the-cloud/