Skip to main content

Defining Software as a Service (SaaS)

The most complete cloud computing service model is one in which the computing hardware and software, as well as the solution itself, are provided by a vendor as a complete service offering. It is referred to as the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. 

SaaS provides the complete infrastructure, software, and solution stack as the service offering. A good way to think about SaaS is that it is the cloud-based equivalent of shrink-wrapped software.

Software as a Service (SaaS) may be succinctly described as software that is deployed on a hosted service and can be accessed globally over the Internet, most often in a browser. 

With the exception of the user interaction with the software, all other aspects of the service are abstracted away. 

Every computer user is familiar with SaaS systems, which are either replacements or substitutes for locally installed software. Examples of SaaS software for end-users are Google Gmail and Calendar, QuickBooks online, Zoho Office Suite, and others that are equally well known. 

SaaS applications come in all shapes and sizes, and include custom software such as billing and invoicing systems, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications, Help Desk applications, Human Resource (HR) solutions, as well as myriad online versions of familiar applications.

Many people believe that SaaS software is not customizable, and in many SaaS applications this is indeed the case. For user-centric applications such as an office suite, that is mostly true; those suites allow you to set only options or preferences. 

However, many other SaaS solutions expose Application Programming Interfaces (API) to developers to allow them to create custom composite applications. These APIs may alter the security model used, the data schema, workflow characteristics, and other fundamental features of the service’s expression as experienced by the user.

Examples of an SaaS platform with an exposed API are Salesforce.com and Quicken.com. So SaaS does not necessarily mean that the software is static or monolithic.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2.1 VIRTUAL MACHINES PROVISIONING AND MANAGEABILITY

In this section, we will have an overview on the typical life cycle of VM and its major possible states of operation, which make the management and automation of VMs in virtual and cloud environments easier than in traditional computing environments As shown in Figure above, the cycle starts by a request delivered to the IT department, stating the requirement for creating a new server for a particular service.  IT administration to start seeing the servers’ resource pool, matching these resources with the requirements, and starting the provision of the needed virtual machine.  Once provisioned machine started, it is ready to provide the required service according to an SLA, or a time period after which the virtual is being released.
Post a Comment
Read more

2.2 VIRTUAL MACHINE MIGRATION SERVICES

Migration service, in the context of virtual machines, is the process of moving a virtual machine from one host server or storage location to another; there are different techniques of VM migration, hot/life migration, cold/regular migration, and live storage migration of a virtual machine. In process of migration, all key machines’ components, such as CPU, storage disks, networking, and memory, are completely virtualized, thereby facilitating the entire state of a virtual machine to be captured by a set of easily moved data files. 2.2.1. Migrations Techniques Live Migration and High Availability Live migration (which is also called hot or real-time migration) can be defined as the movement of a virtual machine from one physical host to another while being powered on.  Live migration process takes place without any noticeable effect from the end user’s point of view (a matter of milliseconds).  One of the most significant advantages of live migration is the fact that it facili...
Post a Comment
Read more

Open SaaS and SOA

A considerable amount of SaaS software is based on open source software.  When open source software is used in a SaaS,  it referred to as Open SaaS.  The advantages of using open source software are that systems are much cheaper to deploy because you don’t have to purchase the operating system or software, there is less vendor lock-in, and applications are more portable.  The popularity of open source software, from Linux to APACHE, MySQL, and Perl (the LAMP platform) on the Internet, and the number of people who are trained in open source software make Open SaaS an attractive proposition.  The impact of Open SaaS will likely translate into better profitability for the companies that deploy open source software in the cloud, resulting in lower development costs and more robust solutions. SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture): SOA is an architectural approach for designing and developing software systems that are composed of loosely coupled services.  In an SO...
Post a Comment
Read more