The phrases ‘Cloud Computing’, ‘Utility Computing’ and ‘Software as a Service’ have been in the media for the past few years.

They are fairly interchangeable and what they are refer to is akin to a return to the mainframe days of yesteryear; rather than a dedicated server for each application at each location, centralised services are provided that the client can subscribe to based on usage, performance and capacity. This allows for a client to grow their computing power as their need grows, just paying for what they’re really using. Until recently, most enterprises would purchase a server for each application they needed to use, typically sizing it for their predicted 5-year growth requirements. In doing so, they were paying for power, capacity and cooling on resources that they were not using.

These applications can be provided as a general shared service (look at services like hotmail, gmail and google office), as dedicated services (CRM and ERP solutions) or as replicated facilities (off-site disaster recovery and business continuity for in-house systems). What they all have in common is that they are provided by remote service providers, either via the internet or a dedicated network link. The provider has the headaches of system support, maintenance, upgrades, power, cooling, connectivity, capacity, etc. You, as the customer, simply pay your fee on a per-client basis and use the service – no overheads.

An example of ‘Software as a Service’

vTiger is a CRM system that can be readily supplied on a SaaS basis. The client (i.e. you) just needs to have internet access and a web browser. The application itself is running on a server hosted with a service provider, with their systems providing the processing power and storage, generally with a service level agreement (SLA) that guarantees things like response times (you want to know that the application will respond in a reasonable way), data integrity (you want to know that your data is safe and not being modified by unauthorised people) and data recovery (how long will it take and where will your data be made available in the event of a system failure).

Being an open-source product, vTiger can be customised for your needs if required. It also means that the data is stored in a known format, allowing you to move to a different service provider and take your data with you without an issue. You could even take a copy of the data and run the application on your own systems, but this would defeat the point of the Cloud Computing mentality.

Telemorphix can provide this on a SaaS basis for £15 per user per month. Contact us to find out more.