Software as a Service (SaaS) is not a new concept. As soon as the Internet became a common part of our lives in the 1990s, software companies began promoting the benefits of hosted software applications. First touted as ASP (Application Service Provider) delivery, the concept has evolved over the last decade to what we now commonly refer to as SaaS.
Elimination of in-house IT burdens provided and still provides – the primary rationale for hosted software. With IT staff often in short supply and older buildings often not equipped for uninterrupted power and the significant cooling and other environmental requirements of server rooms, Software as a Service offers the possibility of offloading applications to experts whose core business is in care and maintenance of IT environments.
There were justifiable fears and undeniable problems with early ASP delivery. Internet connections were still slow and unreliable. Applications weren’t designed for Internet delivery, and so performance and user interfaces were less attractive than the client-server appications that were dominant at the time.
But the world has changed in a decade. Today, Software as a Service fulfills its early promise, and can provide the most reliable and economic for companies to access their business systems. Here are some of the reasons the picture has been so thoroughly transformed:
- Internet connectivity has improved: When business applications were first offered over the web a decade ago, many people – and many businesses – were still relying on dial-up connections to reach the Internet. Access was difficult, limited to locations where phone jacks were readily available, and subject to frequent dropped connections. Today, with high-speed and WiFi connections becoming ubiquitous – in hotel rooms, airports, cafes and even public parks – people really can work anytime and just about anywhere. Internet security has improved too; business today is conducted over secure Internet connections that have little risk
- Web-based applications have matured: Unlike early web-enabling technologies, which often took minutes to move from screen to screen or to update data, applications today can be built – like Bricsnet – from the ground up to perform quickly and effectively over the web. Technologies such as AJAX have eliminated long waits for screen refreshes, and today’s web applications provide graphics, spreadsheets and other common formats with speed and ease of use. And unlike early web-hosted applications that were rigid and limited, today’s applications offer the same flexibility, configurability and upgradeability as applications housed inside corporate firewalls.
- Data Centers have come of age: The collocation environments that began to spring up in the late 1990s have become solid, highly reliable environments focused on uninterrupted connectivity. Because they can leverage the benefits of housing many customers in one environment, today’s data centers typically offer stronger fail-over and recovery processes than most in-house data centers can, as well as strong data backup and audit procedures. Bricsnet’s data center in Novato, California, for example, has a strong record of better than 99.9 percent uptime, and meets the stringent requirements of the SAS 70 Type II standard.
- Security is more than just a word: One of the early reactions to hosted software was a reluctance to house sensitive corporate data “outside the firewall.” But contemporary Internect security protocols and encryption have eliminated that concern. Led by demands for online banking and procurement, security has improved to the point that any organization can be confident its data is safely transmitted to and from hosted servers.
- Interoperability is a reality: In the early days of ASP offerings, customers were pretty much limited to stand-alone applications that couldn’t connect outward to other important business systems. Even with in-house systems, integration and interoperability was often limited to flat file data transfers that required significant manual intervention. SOA architecture and Web Services have changed that. Now, applications leverage Web Services to make calls to each other, seeking and receiving data instantaneously and honoring business processes across application boundaries. It has become nearly as easy for two data center-based applications to communicate with each other as it is for two workers to talk on the phone.
- SaaS Delivery provides real economy: Self-hosted applications require investment not only in software, but in hardware, support personnel and maintenance. With Software as a Service, companies have the chance to reduce risk by contracting for annual or monthly payment terms that easily fit into operating budgets and thus bypass the need for approval of capital investment. In terms of Speed to Value, the elimination of lengthy capital approval processes can provide one of the greatest shortcuts, giving companies the chance to be up and running on a new system in record time.
For all of these reasons, Bricsnet's Software as a Service option is a key component in our ability to provide Speed to Value to customers. To learn more, contact Bricsnet sales at +1-415-321-2650 or salesinfo@bricsnet.com. We look forward to showing your organization the benefits of Software as a Service.
