Performing due diligence is customary in any successful IT infrastructure deployment project. A few areas to address in the due-diligence checklist include: Data-security standards - data-security needs must be assessed before moving critical business data; SLA guarantees –ensure that the SLAs (service level agreements) that warrant the performance, availability, and security that the vendor will provide are in place; Migration strategies -know the data-migration strategies and policies that allow taking the business’ data, including any provisions for data and code escrow, in case the business decides to leave a SaaS application for a different solution; In-house integration requirements –make sure that migrating to SaaS will meet all the functional and data-integration requirements of the company; and Reporting services – investigate what reporting services the provider offers, and whether or not these are compatible with the company’s needs because accurate and useful reporting is especially important.

ERP Software

Software as a Service, Part IV

As already stated, Software as a Service applications are arranged along three distinctive lines: licensing, location, and management.  On-premise applications are licensed with a single cost paid up-front per each user or site into time without end, or else the applications are owned outright such as in the case of heavily customized applications. SaaS applications are many times licensed with a usage-based transaction model.  In this arrangement, the customer is billed just for the number of service transactions used. Otherwise, the familiar time-based subscription model in which the customer pays a flat fee per seat for a period of time with unlimited use of the service during that period is a possibility.

On-premise applications are installed directly in a business’ IT environment while SaaS applications are installed in a central location where the host is situated. There is also the appliance model in which the vendor supplies a hardware/software component as a "black box" that is installed at the business instead of the vendor's site. An example is a device that includes a logistics application with a cached and periodically updated database.

Traditionally, the IT department is responsible for providing IT service to users, which means being familiar with network, server, and application platforms; providing support and troubleshooting; and resolving IT security, reliability, performance, and availability problems. It is possible for some IT departments to subcontract some of these management responsibilities to third-party service providers that specialize in IT management. Conversely, SaaS applications are completely managed by the SaaS vendor; to the point that the implementation of management tasks and responsibilities is obscured.

Data can originate from different sources, using diverse protocols and a variety of mutually incompatible formats. An integration broker is capable of taking data from a variety of sources, determining how and where the data needs to be processed and routed, and then sending each piece of data to its destination in a usable form. Multiple logical lines can be used to deal with data traveling in unlike directions. Data comes in and out of the line through channels that identify the protocols used to communicate with data sources. For example, one channel might be established to transmit data from a particular Web service to the broker using SOAP; another might transmit the data from the broker to a SaaS application using FTP.

Written by :

kristine H