I have been following SAP new generation architecture for quite sometime now. In addition to business reasons, I was following SAP on my personal interest as well purely because of SAP's architectural approach in their product roadmaps. After Vishal Sikka joined as the CTO of SAP, the technology strategies of several products have been articulated much more clearly than before.
SAP has acquired quite a lot of companies in the last few years. And in the process, it has also acquired handful of technologies and frameworks in its product lines. If you are an SAP customer leveraging their products in several portfolios, am sure you would be wondering what their technology strategy is!. They have ABAP, Microsoft .NET, Java, Business Objects, Sybase Mobile Technologies, NetWeaver Mobile, etc. Using these bunch of technologies, they were also trying to come up with their home-grown mult-tenant architecture to host their on-demand offerings. Now, if someone wants to integrate any of their edge (e.g. mobile) applications with their core ERP, they need to be really aware of the multitude of choices and make a suitable decision.
Sometime back, Vishal Sikka had mentioned that SAP is following a Pace Layering approach to their architecture. What is meant by Pace Layering?. Here is an excellent explanation by James Governor of Redmonk. If you are an IT architect, you don't want to miss this one. According to SAP, SAP will abstract its software into multiple horizontal layers, which will allow for the evolution of each layer at its own pace, while at the same time preserving consistency.
Of course, Customers wouldn't like to leave behind emerging technologies when it comes to 'edge' applications. At the same time, they wouldn't want their systems to be constantly disrupted to adapt to the accelerating pace of changes. So, the challenge is - How do they preserve consistency and adopt to new technologies?. And that's where SAP's Architecture comes in.
In the recently held, SAP summit, SAP has unvield the architecture strategy for their On-Demand solutions. According to the strategy, "SAP's OnDemand architecture will be standardized on a Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering that includes "Next Generation Core," based on the Business ByDesign architecture, and "Next Generation Edge," a lightweight platform that merges SAP's lighter weight SaaS technologies". And all these would get deployed on SAP's next generation application server SAP NetWeaver 8.0. And the picture depicted in the above mentioned SAP article is worth a mention. It portrays the division of responsibilities across the on-demand stack. Sure, SAP has a long way to go in delivering this architecture. But, I believe the vision would streamline the architecture and help in delivering superior products.
Am still trying to figure out what has changed from last year to this year, to incorporate Multi-tenant capability in new SAP's On-Demand offering. Has SAP acquired new companies/new products or home-grown capability that is on par with SalesForce.com's multi-tenant architecture?. Will keep you posted, if I find it something interesting. My last impression on SalesForce.com multi-tenant architecture was that it is highly Database centric and good for lightweight applications. I don't believe the same approach can be scaled to complex transactional applications.
Showing posts with label SaaS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SaaS. Show all posts
Monday, December 20, 2010
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Promising Acquisition - II
In the last post, we talked about Dell-Perot - A product company acquiring a Service entity to expand its reach. In this post, I wanted to highlight another interesting combination - An IT Service company investing in a hardware product company. Curious to know more?. Read on..
Accenture invests in a product company called Bug Labs. Yes, the company is teaming up with a tiny hardware product manufacturing company called Bug Labs. It is a move away from Accenture's conventional business model.
In a nutshell, Bug Labs provides a base [open-source] hardware module that can be enhanced to build a whole new device by adding other hardware add-ons such as accelerometer, GPS and GPRS connector and so on. Reminds me of another similar open source hardware company called Chumby, that I read about couple of years ago.
Once you have your own custom built hardware device, you can deploy your own business applications on top of the device in as little as two days. The advantage is that the device can be completely tailor-made for a target company and can be a great value add in rapid prototyping of new products/services.
Accenture is also planning to charge its customers based on pay-per-use of its underlying software services instead of selling the product. Do visit the BugLabs site, you will see a new ecosystems of devices and applications emerging.
Accenture invests in a product company called Bug Labs. Yes, the company is teaming up with a tiny hardware product manufacturing company called Bug Labs. It is a move away from Accenture's conventional business model.
In a nutshell, Bug Labs provides a base [open-source] hardware module that can be enhanced to build a whole new device by adding other hardware add-ons such as accelerometer, GPS and GPRS connector and so on. Reminds me of another similar open source hardware company called Chumby, that I read about couple of years ago.
Once you have your own custom built hardware device, you can deploy your own business applications on top of the device in as little as two days. The advantage is that the device can be completely tailor-made for a target company and can be a great value add in rapid prototyping of new products/services.
Accenture is also planning to charge its customers based on pay-per-use of its underlying software services instead of selling the product. Do visit the BugLabs site, you will see a new ecosystems of devices and applications emerging.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Promising Acquisition - I
In the recent past, I have had the opportunities to deal with application rationalizations, replacements/migrations and had the chance to recommend suitable SaaS solutions in replacement for on-premise solutions. What do you think the response might have been?. Well, the customers are definitely interested in the solution, but they are not bold enough to take that first critical step due to various reasons such as requirement of new contracts/agreements, data security, provisioning, user management, switching/transition costs.
My point of view - the ideal & easiest situation for the end customers to adopt SaaS would be - the current application custodians becoming the actual Application owners. Yes, the IT service companies who currently manage the applications, to transform themselves as SaaS provisioning companies in the respective business domains. The Service companies that provide the seamless switch to their end customers from being an owner to consumer will add great amount of value.
If that happens, it could open the door for a brave new world where IT service companies start to create their own SaaS ecosystem to serve each other and their respective clients.
Of late, we are witnessing quite a few acquisitions in the market that could lead the way to the new ecosystem - HP-EDS in the past and Dell acquiring Perot Systems last week. Will Dell-Perot combination give HP-EDS a run for its money?. Not necessarily.
The question to be asked is - what is the new value that could be brought by these acquisitions to the end consumer?.
The IT infrastructure products & services market is clearly being disrupted by various factors such as virtualization, cloud computing/SaaS, etc. And companies are rapidly responding to the disruptions by complimenting their capabilities by suitable acquisitions.
As I mentioned earlier in this post, would these new IT infrastructure + Services combo deliver those new value Options or spend the next couple of years in just restructuring companies to increase more revenues?. We'll have to wait and see!
My point of view - the ideal & easiest situation for the end customers to adopt SaaS would be - the current application custodians becoming the actual Application owners. Yes, the IT service companies who currently manage the applications, to transform themselves as SaaS provisioning companies in the respective business domains. The Service companies that provide the seamless switch to their end customers from being an owner to consumer will add great amount of value.
If that happens, it could open the door for a brave new world where IT service companies start to create their own SaaS ecosystem to serve each other and their respective clients.
Of late, we are witnessing quite a few acquisitions in the market that could lead the way to the new ecosystem - HP-EDS in the past and Dell acquiring Perot Systems last week. Will Dell-Perot combination give HP-EDS a run for its money?. Not necessarily.
The question to be asked is - what is the new value that could be brought by these acquisitions to the end consumer?.
The IT infrastructure products & services market is clearly being disrupted by various factors such as virtualization, cloud computing/SaaS, etc. And companies are rapidly responding to the disruptions by complimenting their capabilities by suitable acquisitions.
As I mentioned earlier in this post, would these new IT infrastructure + Services combo deliver those new value Options or spend the next couple of years in just restructuring companies to increase more revenues?. We'll have to wait and see!
Friday, February 20, 2009
Net Neutrality and SaaS
When Google offered to ‘co-locate’ their edge / cache servers along with ISP locations, there was a big uproar saying Google is trying to violate net neutrality. The doubts raised were - The deal between ISP & Google may potentially lead to provision of ‘faster lane’ to Google Sites compared to Other Web Sites, And the ISP will have the liberty to prioritize Google traffic over others leading to discrimination!
Google then clarified there is no exclusive agreement in place that could lead to discrimination of Internet Traffic. But, with the advent of proprietary and commercial network Services [SaaS], the Net Neutrality would be subject to debate again in the coming future.
Already, Amazon bundling its Wireless services with its Kindle device is receiving enough criticism for providing exclusive network access to its customers.
In case of Enterprise SaaS consumers such as users of Amazon Web Services or SalesForce.com, they would need to share the ‘Internet pipe’ along with other public users when it comes to consuming those services over the Internet. This would significantly impact the Quality-of-Service levels / SLAs of the respective SaaS providers.
Now, When SaaS goes mainstream and the adoption rate increases, the downtime and SLA violation may simply become unacceptable [because people would be paying for the SLAs] and that would force SaaS providers to adopt new strategies including a formal policy change in Net Neutrality and consequently the economics of SaaS consumption [who will pay for those prioritized pipe?. Amazon or Consumer? Will the policy be applicable to Global Customers and Global ISPs?]
Google then clarified there is no exclusive agreement in place that could lead to discrimination of Internet Traffic. But, with the advent of proprietary and commercial network Services [SaaS], the Net Neutrality would be subject to debate again in the coming future.
Already, Amazon bundling its Wireless services with its Kindle device is receiving enough criticism for providing exclusive network access to its customers.
In case of Enterprise SaaS consumers such as users of Amazon Web Services or SalesForce.com, they would need to share the ‘Internet pipe’ along with other public users when it comes to consuming those services over the Internet. This would significantly impact the Quality-of-Service levels / SLAs of the respective SaaS providers.
Now, When SaaS goes mainstream and the adoption rate increases, the downtime and SLA violation may simply become unacceptable [because people would be paying for the SLAs] and that would force SaaS providers to adopt new strategies including a formal policy change in Net Neutrality and consequently the economics of SaaS consumption [who will pay for those prioritized pipe?. Amazon or Consumer? Will the policy be applicable to Global Customers and Global ISPs?]
Thursday, February 19, 2009
WebServices killed EAI. Cloud Computing/SaaS kills what?
Cloud computing/SaaS has the potential to virtually eliminate Internal IT completely from the enterprises. The widespread adoption of Salesforce.com confirms the fact that operational functions - such as HR, Sales/Marketing – today has the ability to bypass Internal IT departments and go ahead to procure the On-Demand applications of their choice. Is it a threat to Internal IT? Ok, that is a different point of discussion altogether.
But, today, I thought I would write about the role of Technologies in the context of Cloud Computing Space. The very fact that applications being pushed out of the firewall to an external service provider literally ‘masks’ or ‘virtualizes’ the complexity in the architecture and technology behind those applications. The simple/direct consumers of SalesForce.com do not need to know the complexities such as its architecture, technology, etc. They all need to know the consumption details of SalesForce.com services.
In fact, Cloud proponents wish that Business users having the ablility to deploy, consume and compose Cloud Services, without needing technical help. And that’s where the real power of Cloud is waiting to be unleashed!
Here is another story from CIO.com. In a recent survey, CEOs perceive that packaged applications are more reliable than Internal IT developed. And they don’t really care what platform/technology the apps are running on. All they need is business performance and SLAs.
In conclusion, Business desires for Solutions isolated from the complexities of Technology and Platforms. That leads to the need for more ‘abstraction’. Just like WebServices came few years ago and provided the much needed abstraction behind heterogenous platforms, Cloud Computing/SaaS is destined to make significant changes in the Technology industry.
In the context of Cloud computing and provisioning business services to end-consumers, Does the end-consumer really care whether it is serviced by Java or .NET platform?. Not really?. Do they care if it runs on Linux or Windows ? May not be. Would they be worried if it runs on Open Source or Commercial platforms?. Again, Not seriously. It’s the SLA and the integrity of Services that matter to the end-consumer.
This trend will influence the procurement/adoption/experimentation trends of Technologies and Open source frameworks within the walls of Enterprise IT. We may not see wide-spread forums / communication across Enterprise IT users in the long run, as it will get influenced and diffused by Service Providers.
It is the Service Providers who will majorly nurture and develop the platforms and Technologies and not necessarily Enterprise IT shops. That’s a significant shift in the ecosystem of Technology. We could expect umpteen number of small and medium service providers providing pointed solutions in niche industry segments. And it is the Service Providers who will contribute and shape the Technology / Infrastructure & Framework landscape. And Enterprise IT will be forced to provide more value towards real business solutions.
And I also foresee significant consolidation in the Platforms / Infrastructure space. Why do we need various kinds of application servers in the Cloud, while the end objective is driven by performance?
A new market is emerging where we will see hybrid tools and technologies that will enable Enterprise IT shops to manage their data centre operations as well as their Public Cloud operations together from a single window. Am sure IBM is working on such a ‘Hybrid Tivoli’ tools and systems. In fact, one of the interesting note that I read was IBM is working on some sort of ‘Cloudburst’ feature where the load from Internal data centre is dynamically distributed to public cloud and seamlessly serviced! Wow!.
As I wrote before, We are going to witness a highly decentralized, but centrally managed ecosystem for Enterprise IT.
But, today, I thought I would write about the role of Technologies in the context of Cloud Computing Space. The very fact that applications being pushed out of the firewall to an external service provider literally ‘masks’ or ‘virtualizes’ the complexity in the architecture and technology behind those applications. The simple/direct consumers of SalesForce.com do not need to know the complexities such as its architecture, technology, etc. They all need to know the consumption details of SalesForce.com services.
In fact, Cloud proponents wish that Business users having the ablility to deploy, consume and compose Cloud Services, without needing technical help. And that’s where the real power of Cloud is waiting to be unleashed!
Here is another story from CIO.com. In a recent survey, CEOs perceive that packaged applications are more reliable than Internal IT developed. And they don’t really care what platform/technology the apps are running on. All they need is business performance and SLAs.
In conclusion, Business desires for Solutions isolated from the complexities of Technology and Platforms. That leads to the need for more ‘abstraction’. Just like WebServices came few years ago and provided the much needed abstraction behind heterogenous platforms, Cloud Computing/SaaS is destined to make significant changes in the Technology industry.
In the context of Cloud computing and provisioning business services to end-consumers, Does the end-consumer really care whether it is serviced by Java or .NET platform?. Not really?. Do they care if it runs on Linux or Windows ? May not be. Would they be worried if it runs on Open Source or Commercial platforms?. Again, Not seriously. It’s the SLA and the integrity of Services that matter to the end-consumer.
This trend will influence the procurement/adoption/experimentation trends of Technologies and Open source frameworks within the walls of Enterprise IT. We may not see wide-spread forums / communication across Enterprise IT users in the long run, as it will get influenced and diffused by Service Providers.
It is the Service Providers who will majorly nurture and develop the platforms and Technologies and not necessarily Enterprise IT shops. That’s a significant shift in the ecosystem of Technology. We could expect umpteen number of small and medium service providers providing pointed solutions in niche industry segments. And it is the Service Providers who will contribute and shape the Technology / Infrastructure & Framework landscape. And Enterprise IT will be forced to provide more value towards real business solutions.
And I also foresee significant consolidation in the Platforms / Infrastructure space. Why do we need various kinds of application servers in the Cloud, while the end objective is driven by performance?
A new market is emerging where we will see hybrid tools and technologies that will enable Enterprise IT shops to manage their data centre operations as well as their Public Cloud operations together from a single window. Am sure IBM is working on such a ‘Hybrid Tivoli’ tools and systems. In fact, one of the interesting note that I read was IBM is working on some sort of ‘Cloudburst’ feature where the load from Internal data centre is dynamically distributed to public cloud and seamlessly serviced! Wow!.
As I wrote before, We are going to witness a highly decentralized, but centrally managed ecosystem for Enterprise IT.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Now, SaaS is a Corporate Social Responsibility!
WoW!. It was quite a revelation when I read the column by Arun Maira, Senior Advisor, Boston Consulting Group in Outlook Business titled 'Look beyond Products and Profits'.
In this column, Arun proposes five new dimensions to the next generation of business models. The article is completely technology-agnostic and talks purely about inclusive growth. When I was reading one of the dimension for the new framework of business, he says - "The second is the distinction between having access to a product or service and owning it. The more business models are geared towards providing access rather than insisting that people own the stuff, the less stuff will be put through our production and supply processes, and the less will be the pressure on the earth’s resources".
After reading this, I said to myself 'Wow!', How clearly this dimension correlates with SaaS business model? It makes the end consumers to access the resources without owning it, and that saves not just money, but lot of resources, including earth's resources'.
Now, I would say 'SaaS is a corporate social responsibility'. Like various other social-sensitive initiatives like recycling paper, green IT - SaaS also makes a company unique by consuming less resources.
In this column, Arun proposes five new dimensions to the next generation of business models. The article is completely technology-agnostic and talks purely about inclusive growth. When I was reading one of the dimension for the new framework of business, he says - "The second is the distinction between having access to a product or service and owning it. The more business models are geared towards providing access rather than insisting that people own the stuff, the less stuff will be put through our production and supply processes, and the less will be the pressure on the earth’s resources".
After reading this, I said to myself 'Wow!', How clearly this dimension correlates with SaaS business model? It makes the end consumers to access the resources without owning it, and that saves not just money, but lot of resources, including earth's resources'.
Now, I would say 'SaaS is a corporate social responsibility'. Like various other social-sensitive initiatives like recycling paper, green IT - SaaS also makes a company unique by consuming less resources.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
SaaS is rocket science!
Yes...Am not talking about a SaaS consumer here...but the provider.
This is what analysts quote when SAP delays its SaaS offering. I was surprised to see SAP officials saying the SaaS offering will prove to be expensive for SAP itself. This is what SAP co-CEO says...
"We have to work out how expensive it will be for SAP if we run this product in a hosted environment. We have to make sure we make enough money with the product"
The offering is targeted at SME businesses and supposed to be cost-efficient for them. While the offering may prove cost-effective for end customers, it looks like it will prove the other way for the provider.
Having this story, I was trying to understand why is it so complex? What could be the technical barriers in building a platform and rolling-out the services, considering the fact that you have so many appliation platforms in the market?
ButI couldn't agree more that its not going to be a cake walk, because of the following reasons:
1. Multi-tenancy architecture is not easy. If the SaaS vendor wants to host multiple tenants in the same infrastructure and still able to deliver the SLAs which are different for different tennants, thats not a default feature of conventional platforms. You will need a new architecture to address the challenges.
2. Only if the multi-tenancy is in place, it would prove to be profitable for the service provider, where you get to host more tenants on less number of instances.
The same challenges apply to in-house shared service providers as well..who would build and host services that are consumed by different LOBs within the same company.
This is what analysts quote when SAP delays its SaaS offering. I was surprised to see SAP officials saying the SaaS offering will prove to be expensive for SAP itself. This is what SAP co-CEO says...
"We have to work out how expensive it will be for SAP if we run this product in a hosted environment. We have to make sure we make enough money with the product"
The offering is targeted at SME businesses and supposed to be cost-efficient for them. While the offering may prove cost-effective for end customers, it looks like it will prove the other way for the provider.
Having this story, I was trying to understand why is it so complex? What could be the technical barriers in building a platform and rolling-out the services, considering the fact that you have so many appliation platforms in the market?
ButI couldn't agree more that its not going to be a cake walk, because of the following reasons:
1. Multi-tenancy architecture is not easy. If the SaaS vendor wants to host multiple tenants in the same infrastructure and still able to deliver the SLAs which are different for different tennants, thats not a default feature of conventional platforms. You will need a new architecture to address the challenges.
2. Only if the multi-tenancy is in place, it would prove to be profitable for the service provider, where you get to host more tenants on less number of instances.
The same challenges apply to in-house shared service providers as well..who would build and host services that are consumed by different LOBs within the same company.
Monday, August 20, 2007
SaaS being Safe
There are always apprehensions about data security in a SaaS model. These apprehensions were holding the enterprises to move their business critical information to a SaaS model software.
Recently I read a very good example in Economist that relates to this fear. Remember, when the locker systems were introduced in the banks decades ago, people were reluctant to keep their money in lockers. But then, slowly things got changed and now people think that bank lockers are much more safer than their own house to keep their valuables.
Am sure in the next couple of years, this trend will begin to be visible in SaaS segment as well..
In banks case, probably one thing that has reassured people about the safety of their valuables is 'Government Regulation'. Similarly, I think we may need some kind of 'Industry regulation controls' across SaaS vendors to ensure data security.
[22 Aug 07] Today in the IASA meeting, I learned that organizations are already practicing SOX compliance when adapting SaaS model. So the regulatory requirement is already in place.
Recently I read a very good example in Economist that relates to this fear. Remember, when the locker systems were introduced in the banks decades ago, people were reluctant to keep their money in lockers. But then, slowly things got changed and now people think that bank lockers are much more safer than their own house to keep their valuables.
Am sure in the next couple of years, this trend will begin to be visible in SaaS segment as well..
In banks case, probably one thing that has reassured people about the safety of their valuables is 'Government Regulation'. Similarly, I think we may need some kind of 'Industry regulation controls' across SaaS vendors to ensure data security.
[22 Aug 07] Today in the IASA meeting, I learned that organizations are already practicing SOX compliance when adapting SaaS model. So the regulatory requirement is already in place.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Composite Applications in SaaS
This is an intersting observation.
I was thinking that SaaS always works in a platform based model. There is no client software that needs to be installed/or on-premise software to be purchased.
It is not always be the case. While SFDC provides a platform based SaaS model, there are other vendors who provide other models of SaaS.
For example, the vendor TwinField provides a Microsoft excel based add-on. This add-on needs to be installed on your desktop to perform extensive analysis on the financial data that is maintained by the TwinField services. The add-on interacts with the TwinField Services platform to retrieve the relevant data.
This is basically a hybrid model where you have little bit of on-premise and a lot of platform based services.
And this is absolutely the same architecture model that 'Composite Applications' follow. Its just that the TwinField does not implement this model in a Business Process/Flow context. Otherwise, it is very identical.
What I see is that, its not just the 'Services' that have the potential to be hosted in SaaS platform. Its also the 'Composite Applications' or some elements of 'Composite Applications' can also be hosted in the SaaS platform.
I was thinking that SaaS always works in a platform based model. There is no client software that needs to be installed/or on-premise software to be purchased.
It is not always be the case. While SFDC provides a platform based SaaS model, there are other vendors who provide other models of SaaS.
For example, the vendor TwinField provides a Microsoft excel based add-on. This add-on needs to be installed on your desktop to perform extensive analysis on the financial data that is maintained by the TwinField services. The add-on interacts with the TwinField Services platform to retrieve the relevant data.
This is basically a hybrid model where you have little bit of on-premise and a lot of platform based services.
And this is absolutely the same architecture model that 'Composite Applications' follow. Its just that the TwinField does not implement this model in a Business Process/Flow context. Otherwise, it is very identical.
What I see is that, its not just the 'Services' that have the potential to be hosted in SaaS platform. Its also the 'Composite Applications' or some elements of 'Composite Applications' can also be hosted in the SaaS platform.
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