Software as a Service (SaaS)

Overview

As organizations continue to adopt outsourced models for automating critical business processes, SaaS is becoming more attractive for many different types of service providers as well as independent software vendors (ISVs). Under this model, software features can be easily enabled or disabled by customer or user based on a specific industry, work environment, or other criteria.

Following compelling business drivers are making SaaS delivery as a viable alternative to traditional licensed based product or application delivery:

• Lower cost of ownership of software
• Flexibility to change usage commitments as business circumstances change
• Economically appealing business cases
• Quicker roll outs
• Accurately their ongoing expenses w ith IT budgets being tightened & assessed for better return on investment (ROI).

Software-as-a-service is undergoing a fundamental shift in how software is acquired, used and paid for. Emerging SaaS models and offerings are taking the SaaS concept far beyond first-generation application functionality and deployment, and into mission-critical business operations for large and small firms.

Classification

We can classify software as a service delivery in two major categories:

• Line-of-business services, offered to enterprises and organizations of all sizes: Line-of-business services are often large, customizable business solutions aimed at facilitating business processes such as finances, supply-chain management, and customer relations. These services are typically sold to customers on a subscription-basis.
• Consumer-oriented services, offered to the general public: Consumer-oriented services are sometimes sold on a subscription-basis, but are often provided to consumers at no cost, and are supported by advertising.

Whether a business-to-business or business-to-consumer focus, STP Systems understands the complexities of developing and delivering Software as a Service (SaaS) in a multi-customer environment.

SaaS Application Architecture

A well-designed SaaS application is scalable, secure, multi-renter-efficient and configurable.

• Scalability:

  It means maximizing concurrency, and using application resources more efficiently. It may include optimizing locking duration, statelessness, sharing pooled resources such as threads and network connections, caching reference data, and partitioning large databases.

• Multi-renter:

  It's architecture that maximizes the sharing of resources across renter, but that is still able to differentiate data belonging to different customers.

• Configuration:

  SaaS application architecture requires to ensure that the task of configuring applications is simple and easy for the customers, without incurring extra development or operation costs for each configuration.

• Security:

  The nature of SaaS makes security both a paramount concern for customers, and a high priority for application architects. Along with application data security, managing authentication and authorization aspects are key architecture drivers from SaaS application point of view.

STP Systems understands these application architecture drivers and can help you in making critical architecture trade-off decisions which can have long term impact on technology and business scalability.

STP Systems has experience in business model and architecture consulting architecting and deploying Software as a Service (SaaS) applications for its customer across the globe. Best practices identified have helped customers successfully architect and deploy robust service oriented solutions.