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Infrastructure as a 

Service (IaaS)

Hardware used to provide 

support  for   end-  user 

applications is outsourced 

and paid for according 

to level of usage. The 

hardware infrastructure 

used includes servers and 

networks.

PaaS (Platform as a 

Service)

Provision of software 

services for application 

design, development, 

data storage, testing 

and hosting together 

with messaging tools 

for collaboration on the 

development project.

How Intel benefits from SaaS, IaaS and PaaS!

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Chapter 3  Managing digital business infrastructure

Application programming interfaces (APIs)

Traditionally, organisations have sought to keep proprietary information within their 

firewalls for security reasons and to protect their intellectual property. But in the Internet 

era, this strategy may limit opportunities to add value to their services or share informa-

tion via other online companies and their web services to increase their potential reach. 

Here are some examples from retail, publishing and software companies where APIs, 

sometimes known as the ‘Programmable Web’, have been used to help gain competitive 

advantage:

● 

Amazon Web Services (http://aws.amazon.com). One example of AWS allows affiliates, 

developers and website publishers to use Amazon Product Discovery which enables other 

sites to incorporate data about Amazon products and pricing.

● 

Facebook and Twitter use their APIs to help other sites embed social content into their 

sites.

● 

The Guardian Newspaper Open Platform (www.guardian.co.uk/open-platform) enables 

sharing of content and statistics from The Guardian. 

● 

Google APIs exist for a number of its services, most notably Google Maps which, accord-

ing to this directory (www.programmableweb.com/apis/directory), is one of the most 

popular mashups created through an API. The Google Analytics API has enabled many 

businesses and  third-  party application developers to visualise web performance data in a 

more tailored way.

● 

Kayak is an aggregator which allows  third-  party sites to integrate kayak.com searches and 

results into their website, desktop application or mobile phone application.