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Workings of Software as a Service model
16-Feb-2010
Suntel's Director, Information Technology, Tariq Marikar in an interview shares insights to the workings of software as a service (SaaS) model. Following are excerpts.
Q: How does the SaaS model work?
Users login to the application through their web browser, under a secured session.
They are authenticated and their relevant application service is delivered through the internet from the iDC to their web browser. The business or desktop application in this case is perfected to very high levels in terms of installation, support and ongoing upgrades The application is connected to the telecommunication billing system and the customer pays only a rental and for usage, as it is with normal telecommunications. The customer does not have to maintain IT staff, worry about software licensing and all the required hardware and software upgrades that are necessary over time. This is what SaaS is in a nutshell. In short pay only for what you use. Simple as that!
Q: But is it practical? And what are the bottlenecks?
It is practical. It is a real life scenario for many companies: The company I work for in the telecommunication industry, already have some applications such as HR, Call center & CRM, Integrated Retail Business Systems & Auto receptionist services in a hosted model. For that matter I think we are the first service provider to do so in Sri Lanka. We feel that this is going to be the next boom in the ICT industry. We have to be in line with the world developments. In fact the concept is gathering momentum in South East Asian countries and even our closest neighbor India.
Talking about bottlenecks, security is a major issue. Say I as a client would be reluctant to keep all my data with a service provider or an alien place for that matter if I am not sure about the security of the information. What needs to be remembered is that a company which is ISO 9001 and ISO 27001:2005 certified for its data center operations, and which has engineered best in class solutions based on the ongoing requirements of many customers is able to offer a highly hardened environment from a security perspective even though its shared.
Q: As you pointed out data security is a very crucial aspect if this is to succeed. How can that be ensured?
A cryptographic key is much like the combination to a safe: if you have the right combination, it's easy to open a safe, but it's hard to open one without the right combination. Similarly, if you have the right key, decrypting encrypted data is easy, but decrypting it is impractical without this key.
If you're careless with the combination to your safe, someone else can easily use it to open your safe, and the protection provided by the safe is compromised. Similarly, the cryptographic keys that you use to encrypt data need to be handled carefully. If you're careless with them then the protection provided by encryption can be essentially eliminated.
Key management covers all the details of how to handle keys carefully enough to ensure this does not happen. Encryption only involves complicated mathematics that's incomprehensible to most people. Key management involves technology, people and processes, so it's even more difficult
Encryption provides an extremely high level of protection. Even with the world's most powerful supercomputers, hackers would need billions of years to beat modern encryption.On the other hand the data should be stored in a secured place such as an IDC with proper certification. This would guarantee that these places would abide by proper standard internationally accepted for information security.
Q: What are the main characteristics of SaaS?
The main characteristics of software as a service is that you subscribe and use over the internet only what your business requires. You pay for that service only based on usage without any upfront costs. You can scale your SaaS upwards and downwards quite quickly without large additional fixed costs to your business. By going for a SaaS solution with your telco provider you obtain a "one stop shop" for all your IT and telecommunications needs and all the inter-dependencies that go in between - as a business you have to spend less time coordinating with various suppliers of telecommunications, network services, hardware and application services in order to resolve IT issues affecting your business.
Q: What are the key benefits of SaaS to a business ?
The main benefits are reduced costs, scalability based on seasonality in your business operations and integrated "one stop shop" services of all your IT and system issues, which can minimize the impact of degrades to your business.
Q: What is the impact of SaaS on IT?
SaaS reduces the cost of IT to your business. It enables you to pay for your IT as OPEX or rental as opposed to CAPEX. It minimizes the upfront investment on idle capacity which may be required for future business growth.