The benefits of the "as-a-service" model of providing technology, tools, and products over the internet, versus locally or on-site within an enterprise, are undeniable: Faster, better, and cheaper, to put it simply. Now, data centers are among the newest entrants to the anything-as-a-service model -- an area that Virginia-based ViON has been mastering since 2005.

On this episode of the MarketScale Software and Technology Podcast, host Sean Heath sat down with ViON's Andy Flick, Portfolio Manager, and Rob Davies, Executive Vice President of Operations, to discuss the proliferation of DCaaS and how their customers use the solution.

Before cloud services, companies large and small, private and public sector, purchased the technology necessary for data storage and housed it either on-site or locally, Davies explained. Data Center-as-a-service is an outcome-based model of IT that can deliver all or individual elements of data center technology managed by a service provider, the customer, or through a hybrid cloud model.

"[Customers say] I want a technology that behaves like the cloud. I want to be able to use this technology for the time I need it, then turn it off, and be done with it," Davies said. "That's what ViON specializes in. We fill the gap between the systems they own and the public cloud with a cloud model that can be delivered anywhere."

The cloud ushered in a new approach to IT infrastructure, Flick said.

"It's interesting that for many many years, the technologist put together the servers, the storage, the networking in order to process data," Flick said. "Now we live in an era where its the data, an outcome of something we're trying to get accomplished, and we're trying to do that in the simplest, most cost-effective manner."