subject: The Pillars Of Software As A Service And Its Relevance In Todays World [print this page] SaaS was not taken seriously in early days but now it handles mission-critical projects. The model has come a long way from a unit silo to full-fledged enterprise applications including ERP in the cloud and the like.
The five pillars of SaaS integration reaffirm the importance of the concept
It is difficult to implement a fully integrated SaaS solution efficiently by any non-IT professional. The SaaS solution needs to include comprehensive master data records. Input of data becomes tedious even if there is much data to be stored. A professional who is adept in delivering the whole solution through SaaS can help.
Multiple skills are needed for completing different tasks. A sales professional browses through customer data remotely then he would need the guidance of an IT professional. Since the task might be repetitive the integration requires skilled developers and those conversant with cloud computing. Software professionals who are well versed with Oracle applications. This is where software professionals who are versatile enough come in handy.
Most organizations are facing shortage of resources, people, money, time, and even less financial resources for the perfect infrastructure. That is where SaaS comes into the picture.
Vendors are always trying to fill in the gaps between the SaaS-IT relationships. All types of IT skill sets are good enough for third party application integration and cloud integration. Most of them want to implement steps for making easy to integrate IT applications.
The middleware must make sense of service calls on one end and database calls are handled on the other end. Connectivity to SaaS solution at the end point is important enough. The workflow should be in accordance with existing business rules and also depends on each operation. Correct information should be passed from one app to another.
The importance of SaaS is well known with a recent Gartner report stating that segments of the SaaS market is expected to grow tremendously for the next three years.
Gartner reported of an expected surge of 19.4% in CAGR of the SaaS market between the years 2009 to 2013 which has delighted various businesses. Additionally, many software companies have seen a drastic reduction in expenditure with regards to licensed software.
SaaS also includes Platform as a Service (PaaS) strategies which are preferred by many companies including Microsoft and IBM. PaaS has attracted a lot of users and in recent times the cloud computing market and new strategies have got new industries and organizations interested for better connectivity. According to a poll by ScienceLogic, the percentage of users is expected to go several notches higher, even triple in two years.
Security has been a major inhibitor for not adopting SaaS since a locked-in scenario is a big detriment to the interests of several organizations while implementing SaaS. But once these problems are resolved, a considerable saving in expenditure is expected. With cloud computing in the Microsoft world in the form of Windows Azure, things are looking bright with major adoption in various Microsoft users in several fields.
