SaaS Hosting Overview And Recommendation

SaaS Hosting - Transparency Critical

2010-06-22T03:42:00.000-07:00

A great article at Joel York's SaaS Blog (Chaotic Flow) titled "SaaS Marketing Tips - The Truth Shall Set You Free", explains the critical difference in the sales process between selling traditional software and Software-as-a-Service. This difference is transparency, or lack of it thereof, on behalf of the software company and a sales process difference which can be applied to various as-a-Service companies including SaaS hosting providers.

Traditional software companies teach their sales employees "to avoid disclosing any more information than the minimum necessary to close the deal". Because of the one-time payment structure of those deals, it creates a short-term focus on both the deal and the relationship with your potential client. However, with SaaS services you can "try before they buy" and then, depending on the contract length, walk at any time if the service is not to your liking. This creates a long-term focus, making transparency and trust between the two parties more natural.

As Joel points out, Google AdWords is a great example:
"Ask yourself how much you spend right now on Google AdWords without ever having spoken to a sales rep. How does this compare to your own average selling price for online transactions? Now, ask yourself why. The answer is transparency, from company reputation to cost-per-click."

Whilst Joel's discussion centres on the software industry, It is true for all products that can also be services including SaaS hosting. This is seen with big ticket items like cars and houses as well as everyday purchases like music and books. The larger the purchase and commitment, the more risk involved and the less trusting the two competing parties become. Full transparency becomes the only logical play when dealing with Product-as-a-Service businesses, just as it is the only logical play when dealing with SaaS hosting providers.

Anyone familiar with the prisoner's dilemma (a game similar to a negotiation process) knows when the game is only played once (like purchasing a good such as a car) both parties have the incentive to "defect" or lie (it is the rational strategy). However, when the game is played multiple times for an amount of time unknown to both parties (like a subscription based service) the rational strategy is to "cooperate". This repetition in "games" creates the incentive to take the leap of faith into a cooperative strategy. If one party defects, the other will defect for the remainder of the negotiations and vice versa. With just one defection, there is no trust, and everyone is worse off for the rest of the series of games.

The as-a-Service model is built on this "repetition of games" trust and cooperation; while you might gain in the short term if you hide the truth, in the long term you will have lost a valuable relationship. This dedication to transparency is one of the lesser talked about benefits of not only moving your business to an as-a-Service company but purchasing from these types of SaaS hosting companies.

Many Software As A Service hosting companies see and live this phenomenon every day. When companies understand the value of transparency, they will have a conversation with all of their prospects to try to understand their needs. If the prospects' needs don't match what the SaaS hosting company offers, the company will let them know. There is no point for an as-a-Service company to sell something to a client that they don't need. That is not a win-win deal. The client will soon figure out that they don't need your service and move elsewhere. It creates unproductive work for both parties. This is something that all as-a-service companies should practice.

Consider this: have you seen an as-a-Service company succeed that isn't built on transparency and trust?

Online Tech owns and manages SAS-70 secure and reliable multi-tenant data centers across the Midwest. With a full range of colocation and managed dedicated server offerings for SaaS hosting services, Online Tech reduces IT data center costs, operational risks and downtime and insures their SaaS clients' servers are always on, always online, and always safe.

CHECK This great product for Supply chain, manufacturing etc

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chris_Rizzo

Explaining Cloud computing (SaaS is type of Cloud)

2010-06-09T19:13:00.000-07:00

Hey! thought this video would help explain some basic concepts of cloud computing and aaS

Enjoy:)

7 Essential questions to ask before selecting a SaaS Hosting provider

2010-06-07T18:43:00.000-07:00

'Software as a Service' (SaaS) continues to gain momentum among software business executives as a more cost effective and easier to control delivery mechanism. The benefit of SaaS is a recurring, predictable revenue stream. However, the move to SaaS often leads ambitious software companies finding themselves with two major headaches:

How do they continue to deliver excellent service without making major capital investments in essential IT and facilities infrastructure?

How do they minimize the ongoing operating expenses and tech personnel costs of being at the leading edge of a very competitive environment?

Below are 7 essential questions you should ask before selecting a SaaS hosting provider.

1) Is a 100% service guarantee the same thing as an SLA?
SaaS hosting providers offer a certain level of functionality to their customers, with the level of service being specified in a Service Level Agreement (SLA).

Many SaaS hosting providers will offer a "guaranteed 100%" uptime. However, this doesn't mean they deliver 100% uptime. Instead, the SaaS hosting providers receive a service credit if 100% uptime isn't delivered. Therefore companies should carefully review the provider's uptime statistics and SLAs to make sure it is consistent with the SLA being offered to customers. Also ask for written details on how they deliver their electrical power, network and server SLAs.

2) Do they get the big picture?
Want to know a SaaS company's worst hosting provider nightmare? Signing a contract only to discover that their provider does little more than deliver 'ping, power & pipe'.

What's saved in low monthly costs is lost many times over by not being able to expand the infrastructure in order to support rapid growth, or recover quickly from operational problems. Be sure to gain a full, written understanding of the technical and business relationship that will be in place before signing a contract with a SaaS hosting provider.

3) Do they offer 'high availability' managed dedicated servers?
Business-class data centers require significant capital investments to provide and maintain space, power, cooling and network functionality in a way that is cost-effective for SaaS companies to take advantage of. At the server level this translates into being able to deliver a range of affordable, high-end managed server solutions that match business requirements.

Contrast that approach with one where a SaaS hosting provider assigns an in-house developer the often hurried task of deploying poorly configured servers for testing, staging and even production. That infrastructure quickly becomes a growth bottleneck due to security, reliability or scalability issues.

4) How do they balance real-time maintenance windows with always-on service?
If a SaaS hosting provider's hardware stack is designed properly and redundant hardware is used correctly, full production availability can be maintained even during a maintenance window.

Real-time maintenance allows new features to roll out quickly since maintenance windows do not have to be scheduled and announced to customers. Developers will appreciate it because they're able to work more normal business hours, but in a real-time maintenance environment. Users like it too because their confidence in the reliability and stability of the entire application solution increases.

5) How exactly will the managed server hosting solutions keep pace with your business growth?
A significant challenge for a SaaS hosting provider is to properly size the "store." It's very important to select a hosting provider who has the infrastructure to support future growth.
For example, a company begins with dedicated servers and a managed backup server in the same data center. Then, as clients and data traffic increase, the business model will require that backup data is securely replicated offsite on a daily basis.
But if the managed server hosting provider has only one data center, how will this be achieved? Such unplanned limitations can become major roadblocks for expanding SaaS companies.

6) Do they offer professional incident management and escalation procedures?
Nothing is more frustrating as a SaaS hosting provider than getting little to no information about a service issue from the hosting provider.

The best SaaS hosting providers have a genuine and very visible culture of service that prevents this from happening to clients. Expect to see systems such as port-level network monitoring plus automated trouble ticket notification in the event of a service issue.
Any reputable SaaS hosting provider should be following clearly documented guidelines for all aspects of configuration and change management. If necessary, ask to see these documents.
The best SaaS hosting providers will also show a willingness to help with application upgrades by involving their network engineers and Sys Admin staff to minimize the impact of any service disruptions.

7) How can a business be sure that their customers' application data is securely and reliably hosted by the SaaS provider?
The Internet has given a whole new meaning to the idea of a 'data bank'. For SaaS hosting providers, it's becoming critical that a trusted business partner securely and reliably hosts their customers' data.

To some extent, managed dedicated servers hosted in an outsourced data center have now become a trusted data bank on which the SaaS business model depends.

SaaS businesses that address these 7 questions before choosing a SaaS hosting provider will increase their uptime and minimize their frustrations with their server infrastructure. This lets them focus on the highest value-add portion of the SaaS business model - the application and the users' experience.

Mike Klein is the President and Chief Operating Officer at Online Tech, a leading managed data center operator in the Midwest. Online Tech offers a full range of collocation and managed server hosting in their SAS-70 secure and reliable multi-tenant data centers across the Midwest. Visit http://www.onlinetech.com for more information.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.

Software As A Service Overview

2010-06-06T18:55:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, here is a great video to help explain how Software as a service works

enjoy :)

CLICK HERE for some great SaaS products. See you at the next post!

SaaS Hosting Overview and Recommendation

2010-02-19T17:55:00.000-08:00

The Technology SaaS or Software as a Service, is a relatively new model with good potentials of explosion. We only started hearing about SaaS Model, right about 2000/2001 and yet, we have an increasing emerging market for various SaaS applications like CRM SaaS, ERP SaaS, SaaS hosting services, HR, Mail,etc.

I have put together this write up to try as much as possible to explain these concepts.

For starters, I will be giving you an overview of SaaS, SaaS hosting, SaaS Vendors and some key things to consider before adopting SaaS. I will go indepth to the technicalities behind SaaS and also talk about the other aaS platforms on a new post

What is SaaS?

SaaS or "Software as a Service" generally describes a model in which a provider (SaaS provider) licences applications for use to customers as a service. Simply put, it is a set of applications hosted on a remote server, accessed through the internet

SaaS based technologies are generally hosted solutions or web based solutions, also known as on-demand solutions. It represents a complete paradigm shift for software development and delivery methods. It is convenient to acquire or license and the convenience of a web based, hosted solution will always be a desirable benefit of SaaS and SaaS Hosting.

It allows for easy access to business data from anywhere where there is internet connection and so data sharing is greatly enhanced.

SaaS and SaaS Hosting, infact threatens to overthrow the traditional on premise licensing methods of buying and deploying software.

There are several SaaS applications, the common ones are CRM SaaS, ERP SaaS, Project Management, Marketing, Time and Billing, Financial and accounting, Inventory Management, Payroll, SCM and more.

The SaaS market extends across a variety of industries including, real estates, retail, healthcare, hospitality, Business Intelligence, Call Centre, Document Management, Enterprise Resource Planning and more.

SaaS Hosting

SaaS Hosting services is generally provided by a Hosting Company or Managed Application/hosting providers. These are the people responsible for housing the SaaS applications and data on secure servers

SaaS Vendors

SaaS vendors are Companies that sell you the SaaS service. Many vendors do not like to keep the Applications on their servers or deal with any application hosting service, so they turn to the SaaS Hosting Companies

Here are some 'Key Things' to Consider Before Adopting SaaS

Cost

The low cost of SaaS is generally the first appeal for SaaS platform. It is generally thought that faster ROI is achievable. SaaS is usually affordable. It can be deployed with much smaller initial cost, although, there is usually an on-going annual cost you pay for the use of the software.

Recommendation: Be sure to consider all cost involved, although, generally it is a lot much cheaper to implement SaaS than on-premise based business solutions

Flexibility

Because SaaS is a Service from a provider (SaaS provider or SaaS vendor) and not an out right purchase, there are some limitations in flexibility as characteristic of licensed software.

With a software out rightly purchased and installed on your servers, you have total control. You could completely customise it as much as you wish. You could even re-write the entire software, but with SaaS you can't entirely do this. However, many SaaS providers work hard to give you flexibility as much as can be permitted. The extent of flexibility varies from a provider to another.

With regard to work flexibility however, SaaS hosting allows you work flexibly from anywhere where there is a connection, home, work, car, etc

Recommendation: Be sure to shop around and source for the right solution for you with the right level of flexibility. A vendor can have a product that is not quite as good the other

Simplicity

SaaS is simpler to deploy from a technical point of view. You need not purchase expensive servers or physically install the software yourself. It can be easily and quickly deployed. It is simple to maintain, as software upgrades and maintenance are made by the SaaS Hosting companies themselves

Can it Co-Exist?

SaaS can co-exist with your in-house applications because it's a web based solution. There is really no need for integration with existing business systems, except you so desire.

Control

SaaS is generally suited to small to mid sized companies. This is because larger companies with well defined business processes, tend not to be able to adapt their processes to the software. Larger companies also seem to require more complex solutions and tend to require more level of control.

Security

SaaS is generally secure. Software hosting is usually done via a SaaS Hosting Company which provides the SaaS service to the SaaS vendor. Backup and disaster recovery is taken care of, with backup done at remote data centres, stored at a secure location

Recommendations:
When choosing a SaaS vendor or SaaS Company, Security is one of the most important filters to look out for. You should choose your vendor carefully, Check and verify that your vendor has the right level of security. A good customer support is also essential

SaaS Pricing

The hosted Software is rented at a set cost per user per month. There are Opportunities also to charge per transaction, event or other unit of value to the customer.

Take a look at this resource

Cloud Computing. An end to our traditional Client/servers or Operating Systems?

2009-11-09T09:40:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. Today I'll be talking about cloud computing and how this might affect the way we work.

Firstly, what's cloud computing someone might ask?.........hmmmm..??!!. I must say at this juncture that cloud computing is a relatively new Phenomenon in the IT industry. However it could be defined simply as a style of virtual computing in which its resources are hosted in the cloud (or over the internet).

This is in effect slightly different to how we use our internet today. Many of us log on to the web to do a bit of browsing here and there and download stuffs probably, but for the most part, there is a huge dependency on our hardwares(PCs) and softwares (windows, Applications, etc) to run our business, or do our job

Now the idea around cloud computing is to free up your IT capital, reduce redundancies and enable you concentrate on your core business, whilst driving down cost considerably. This is achieved by providing these services on the cloud, by some specialised service providers of such.

And do you think IT cost is not a lot?...Think about software ugrades, patches, hardware upgrades, software licencing, server capacites, backup, labour costs, complex systems etc.. the list is endless. Many of us are aware that for most businesses, IT is core. This is because when the IT department sneezes the entire organisation catches cold. Mind you, am not tryng to de-emphasise IT in any form here. I have been an IT professional since 1992 and have worked with a lot of multinational organisations, and I know for a fact that in the unlikely event that our servers go down, nobody works.! People take cigarrette breaks..... What a dependency!!!. What service providers do is take on the hosting of these services on the cloud, including hosting your data, so you have absolute peace of mind and considerable cost savings

Imagine the nightmare of loosing your laptop. ..used to be a 'joke', but with cloud hosting, you need not worry about your data or applications, because nothing will be hosted locally. This could make a difference to someone life.

I must say however that cloud computing is still evolving and really, we're not there yet.

Some known players in this arena are Google, Amazon, salesforce, Netsuite. Netsuite provides Software As A Service (SaaS) for business softwares, Google (SaaS: GoogleAps), Salesforce (SaaS: CRM) Amazon (AWS), Microsoft, IBM, etc. Some players also provide Infrastructure As A Service (IaaS) and Platform as a service (PaaS)

What do you think of cloud computing?