Embrace SaaS for Desktop Management
11 March, 2007
By Patricia Pickett
An analyst firm recently released a report that calls on companies to adopt the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model to manage IT infrastructure and deliver software applications.
Waltham, Mass.-based Hurwitz & Associates' report, titled The World of IT Has Taken a Quantum Leap, outlined the advantages of using SaaS solutions for IT management and infrastructure needs including asset management, software distribution, patch management, anti-virus management, online data backup and remote access. Software vendor Everdream sponsored the report.
Although much of the talk around SaaS has been about software applications, such as customer relationship management or office productivity tools, Marcia Kaufman, partner at Hurwitz, said the delivery model can be just as effective for the management of IT infrastructure.
Multi-tenancy means businesses get applications that are totally devoted to them, "but because the infrastructure is shared by multiple users, all of the issues related to change management are handled by someone else -- by the company providing the software." That same concept applies to infrastructure management -- for example, making sure that desktops and laptops have the most up-to-date security patches.
"We're talking about having the ability to deal with very complex management situations," often distributed environments that require remote management, Kaufman said. "In small businesses there is often not a large IT staff to take care of it all, but if there is software available to manage all of these desktop issues related to security and updates, they are just that much ahead of the game."
Moving to the SaaS model involves a cultural change for both the software vendor and the customer. "It changes the balance of power, almost, between the two," Kaufman said. Whereas the sale of a software application would have been a one-time million-dollar deal, with the vendor moving on to the next sales prospect after the transaction was completed, with the SaaS model, "when I am a customer I don't have to lay out that large sum of money in advance. I am paying as I go so it's really more of an even contract between the buyer of the software services and the seller."
The cultural change on the customer's end has to do with the notion of losing control. "It's a different way of operating," said Kaufman, who acknowledged that some businesses do prefer to own the software and pay for it all at once. However, she maintained that smaller firms are increasingly embracing the concept of on-demand software because it frees them from the burdens of maintenance. "With the advent of the SaaS delivery option, the whole world is open to them."
One of the concerns with the SaaS model is security, Kaufman said. To deal with that issue, the customer needs to step back and make sure it fully understands the multi-tenancy approach. "There is a shared infrastructure but it is very important that the hosting of the application is done in a way that there is complete attention paid to the security requirements for all of the customers," she said.
Even the smallest companies today need to communicate with multiple business partners and service providers, so their security concerns are just as important as those of larger firms. A highly secure hosted environment is something that all customers interested in the SaaS model need to think about. "It needs to be the number one question for them," she said. “In vertical markets such as health care where data protection is highly regulated, SaaS applications can be made more secure by working with a provider who specializes in that particular market”, Kaufman said.
