For Digital Newcomer Professionals – What is Cloud? – Part 4

In the previous article “What is Cloud? Part 3”, we discussed the PaaS offering and found that we can delegate much of the work to the cloud provider, allowing our development team to focus on what’s essential to the business rather than on routine maintenance tasks. This approach reduces the cost of developing and maintaining software, saves time, and speeds up the go-to-market process.

In this article, we will explore the SaaS (Software as a Service) offering. In this model, a service provider creates software suited to a specific business need, deploys it on the cloud, and makes it available to consumers (e.g., business owners). Confused? Let’s get back to our story-based approach.

Suppose you own a store with a wide range of products and want to create a website to let online users search through your products. In the last article, we discussed how you could hire a developer or a software company to create this website. However, many business owners need the same type of website with similar functionalities, so it seems more reasonable and cost effective to create this software once and allow multiple business owners to use it. While this approach makes sense to some extent, I think a few questions popped in your mind now.

• Peter owns a grocery store called "Always Fresh" with a logo featuring a red apple, located at 10 Market Street. His store has specific vegetables available.
• Adam owns another grocery store called "Healthy Food," with a logo featuring a basket of fruit. Adam’s store, located at 28 Queen Street, is temporarily closed for renovations.

How can a service provider create one website for two different stores like the ones mentioned above? Although these stores have different details, a developer can create a single customizable website that can be customized for each store’s unique name, logo, address, stock, etc. Developing the software once and configuring/customizing multiple instances of it is much more efficient than creating a separate website for each business, making this model cost-effective for everyone involved.

Now that we understand why this model saves money, let’s look at how the key players interact in a SaaS model:

1. Cloud Provider: Owns the data centers, hardware, and foundational software (like operating systems and hypervisors).
2. SaaS Provider: Develops and maintains the configurable software.
3. Business Owners: Need to use the SaaS to support their business.
4. Developer: Hired by the business owner to configure the SaaS product to suit specific business needs.

Here’s how these actors work together:

• The SaaS provider develops a software solution for a specific type of business.
• They deploy this solution on the cloud using IaaS and PaaS services.
• A business owner hires a developer and provides business-specific details (e.g., name, logo, stock information).
• The developer creates an account with the SaaS provider, purchases an instance, and customizes it based on the business owner’s data.
• Now, the business owner has a customized website for their store.
• Other business owners can follow the same process to get their own configured instance of the same software.

The scale and types of SaaS applications can vary significantly. To help identify SaaS applications regardless of their size of the business they are addressing, let’s focus on three main features:

1. It is developed once.
2. It is deployed on the cloud to serve multiple users.
3. Each user creates an account with the SaaS provider and customize it for themselves

A popular SaaS example is Microsoft Dynamics 365, a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. Microsoft developed Dynamics 365 once, deployed it on Azure (a cloud provider), and allows multiple users to create accounts, each with its own instance configured to meet the specific needs of each business.

SaaS applications are widely used, and you may have used one without even realizing it. They aren’t just for businesses—individuals use them too! For instance, Netflix is a SaaS application. Let’s check if it meets the criteria:

• It’s developed once (by Netflix).
• It’s deployed on the cloud (using AWS).
• Each user creates an account and customizes it to suit their needs (e.g., setting up family profiles).

As you can see, SaaS offerings vary and open the door for innovation and cost optimization. Congratulations, you now understand cloud main offerings: IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. In the next article, we’ll look at the major cloud providers in the market and some interesting facts about each one. Stay tuned for "What is Cloud? Part 5."