Enterprise SaaS != Web 2.0: A Quick Hosting Perspective

Sep 10, 2007 by Matt Ammerman

I like a good mystery just as much as the next guy, and this story’s got it all.  If you haven’t got the time or interest to read the whole forum thread, here’s the synopsis:  Jatol.com (no hyperlink provided because of said mystery), a notable web hosting company seemingly popular with development crowds has simply vanished.  Literally.  Websites down. Domain missing. Phones disconnected. Believe it or not, even the owner is missing! 

At this point, there’s not even a support number to call and Jatol.com users aren’t even able to retrieve their stored data or web site files. As I read further down the discussion chain, I started thinking about how awful it would be if I were running a web-based business in a situation like this – the mere thought of surmounting catastrophic shutdown such as this is mind boggling.

While it may seem obvious to some, this story specifically highlights a very important part of what enterprise SaaS ISVs should look for in managed services: providers that can assert serious service level agreements and back them with real ramifications.  For instance: transparent multi-tiered redundancy, consistent and thorough backups and archives, potentially even software and hardware escrow services (see ‘catastrophic shutdown’ above). The bottom line is that hobbyist devs hosting websites or even working applications with reliable hosting companies count downtime in minutes, while enterprise count downtime in thousands of dollars.

The tricky thing about SaaS is that it fundamentally requires the ISV to at least purport to be the ‘provider’ of software.  While hosting may be outsourced and ISVs become at least the ‘P’ in ‘MSP’, it is vitally important that the backing ‘MS’ be up to par.  If you’ve dealt with an MSP (without naming names) and had service level ‘experiences’, what are your thoughts on MSP preparedness for SaaS?  Are MSPs ready to host enterprise SaaS applications that generate the aggregate load of potentially millions of ISVs’ users?

[poll=6]

 

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Can the Fortune 500 Achieve Efficiency through Intra-enterprise SaaS?

Jul 4, 2007 by Sinclair Schuller

SaaS is generally approached from the standpoint that a SaaS provider will write an application and sell it as a service to other businesses. This provides the many well known business driver benefits to those who use SaaS. Additionally, it is also well understood that the provider generates certain efficiencies via the centralization of the technical burden associated with the application. Is there another realm of SaaS applicability, however? In my opinion, absolutely!

Whenever I gauge the ‘size’ of a SaaS provider, I look to see how many subscribers they support – not customers, but actual individual users. Many SaaS providers are in the 5,000 user to 20,000 user range across hundreds of customers. While these numbers are not small, some Fortune 500 companies have more employees than this, spread across numerous subsidiaries. Furthermore, the Fortune 500 write a considerable amount of software for use by their employees, with some software (such as HR/Expense Reporting/Time Management apps) used by virtually every employee. Can SaaS help organize this scenario? From the technical/architectural standpoint – yes it can. If an enterprise were to write software for their employees & subsidiaries with a single instance, multi-tenant model in mind, they would undoubtedly be able to centralize and organize administration while being able to distribute functionality. That’s powerful and efficient.

Have you worked on any intra-enterprise SaaS applications? Who were your tenants – subsidiaries or departments? Did IT realize efficiencies through the model?

 PS: If you are in the U.S., have a happy and safe 4th!

 

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