What is SaaS, and how does it work? 

How many times per day, you hear clients or colleagues mentioning “the cloud”? And still, there’s no proper comprehension of the scale and scope of it.

There are diverse cloud choices for running your business: PaaS, IaaS, and SaaS. Do you know about them? Let’s give it a look at SaaS.

What is SaaS?

SaaS stands for Software as a Service, and it is a business model of software licensing. The software is supplied by providers through subscription. This means the software is held on external servers instead of being on client servers, employees’ computers, or hardware in general. 

SaaS supplies plenty of different business apps: email, auditing, file sharing, human resources, management (contacts, clients info, sales, purchases, etc.), document collaboration, calendars, databases, and the list can go so long.

Most important Cloud Computing trends you should know!

A bit of SaaS history

The basis for making SaaS real was set around the 1960s. Decades of constant development passed and for SaaS to get matured. 1999 was finally the year when Salesforce released the first SaaS solution. A platform called Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

Originally, due to the sluggishness and instability the Internet still experienced, it was thought SaaS solutions were suitable just for small businesses or startups. But with time, Internet improvements, like fewer bandwidth limitations, higher speed, more affordable hosting rates, etc., totally boosted SaaS possibilities. These type of solutions proved their benefits for all kinds of businesses, big ventures included. Easy use, cost-efficiency, and functionality pushed their growth exponentially.

How does it work?

SaaS works really easily. Users need a device connected to the Internet, a browser, a username, and a password to log in to the system for accessing the software. No matter their location, service is available and users’ accounts accessible due to the web connection. This fits perfectly with the useful and popular home-office trend.

A big advantage for clients is, they are not in charge of updating software to new versions, enhancing security, or maintaining servers. SaaS providers do that for you. 

SaaS helps companies acquire software without disks, downloads, and extra time for installing or updating it on all business computers. Software is accessible via the Internet. You get a subscription paying a regular fee, and that’s it.

*some SaaS requires a client application to be installed and update on client devices

What to consider while picking a SaaS provider?

Hiring such a service is a way to open access to your company. External people will manage a key chunk of your IT systems. Don’t hire risks!

• High-security level – Employees will exchange info daily. A lot of sensitive data from your company and clients will be transferred. High-security standards and modern tech are a must. SaaS providers can’t guarantee 100% security. But reliable ones take responsibility in case of an outage, breach, etc. 
• Flexibility –  Businesses change. New needs appear, employees get hired, others fired, etc. You need a flexible platform to remove or to add users, more features, etc., fast and easily. 
• Scalability – To have extra room for your business’ growth matters. Don’t be stopped by the tech limits of your provider.
• The highest uptime – It must be accessible at any moment for you and your employees. The closest to 100% uptime, the better. 
• Customer support – Check availability and conditions.
• Service and payments – Usually, providers charge based on the company’s number of users, the set of apps required, but be sure about everything. What does the regular fee include? How frequently does it increase? What if you need to scale the service or cancel it, etc.
• Service Level Agreement (SLA) – This can be complex but analyze every detail of service, provider’s responsibilities, fees, legal protection, data security, penalties, and many more relevant policies. Don’t sign blindly.

Conclusion

SaaS solutions are out-of-the-box tools’ sets to efficient your daily business operation. It is an easy and helpful choice of cloud tech.