DaaS
is based on the concept that the product, data in this case, can be provided on demand to the user regardless of geographic or
organizational separation of provider and consumer. Additionally, the emergence of service-oriented architecture (SOA) has
rendered the actual platform on which the data resides also irrelevant. This development has enabled the recent emergence of
the relatively new concept of DaaS. Data provided as a service was at first primarily used in web mashups, but now is being
increasingly employed both commercially and, less commonly, within organisations such as the UN.