What Can Cloud-Connected Business Management Software Do for Me?
New products, ideas, and services are constantly re-defining what is “best” in the technology market. Among the top on that “best” list is cloud computing – a software deployment option that every business now considers in order to ensure the longevity of their IT investment. Let’s explore how the various software models can meet the needs of business – today and tomorrow while keeping business data safe and secure.
Software As a Service (SaaS)
At one point in time, most companies procured and deployed their software on-premises with a perpetual license fee. When as-a-service offerings became popular, a pure cloud model proliferated – with subscriptions to software corresponding to a company’s consumption, little long-term commitment, and managed in a multi-tenant model, i.e., multiple customers being serviced with a single instance of a software application. (Conversely, on-premises software is a single-tenant model — one customer/one instance.) The benefits to customers were they could get up and running quickly, did not need a full IT department to run their software applications because someone else would manage the infrastructure, and they could expand easily as their needs grew. All great – but some customers were still wary of storing their valuable company data outside their own data center.
