What are the major differences between SaaS and SaaS-Cloud Procurement IS applications?

Cloud, SaaS, SaaS-Cloud, ASP, hybrid cloud, public, private…IT specialists jargonize, software publishers mix, the business gets tangled up and chooses its software partner in the darkness of the war of technical acronyms. And despite this, the technological choices made by the software vendor mean that the business needs an ad hoc organization to take advantage of the business functionalities on offer.

On the one hand, SaaS opens up the possibilities to specific developments, blending the concepts of customization, parameterization and specifics developments, and on the other hand, SaaS – Cloud imposes a comfortable configurable standard for those who know how to give up on some features.  How to differentiate SaaS from SaaS – Cloud? ,There is only one question to ask: is the application mono or multi-tenant?

SaaS (single-tenant)

At the turn of the millennium, without modifying their technical choices, software vendors gradually abandoned the sale of their software in the form of a license to be installed on a customer’s hardware architecture, in favor of a subscription to the application hosted by them. The profound modification of their business model occurred without having invested in parallel on a redesign of their technical model which is: single-tenant (one new customer = one installation), technically able to be implemented at the customer’s site and open to specific developments.

SaaS – Cloud (multi-tenant)

More recently, two innovations, the Cloud and multi-tenant, have enabled a new value proposition to emerge. The Cloud is a technical architecture of server and storage farms, and multi-tenant is to IT what a building is to real estate: sharing common resources and predefined configurations (partitions, decoration and floor and wall coverings). SaaS-Cloud is multi-tenant (a new customer = opening of the service), installed exclusively on a Cloud infrastructure and closed to specific developments.

Three main points of attention: implementation, updates and third-party integration 

• Implementation : Endless adaptation for one or standard to be deployed for the other, the differences between SaaS and SaaS – Cloud will require a differentiated project method. The implementation of a SaaS will require a strong consulting advisor that of a SaaS – Cloud will impose to the customer renunciations of his desires at the price of a guarantee of stability.
• Updates : The business benefit of controlling the service provided to users and the dates of updates to the SaaS application will involve an effort of testing, documentation and budgetary provision all the more so as the implementation has put the standard to shame. For its part, SaaS – Cloud will impose new versions with identical functionalities, more or less optional, and uniform update dates for all its customers. 
• Integration : While the constraints related to interfaces to the Customer’s IS are comparable to the requirement that the SaaS application makes standard APIs available, the same will not be true for the integration of third-party services – data, compliance and risk providers. Where SaaS will need to create a specific integration, the SaaS – Cloud will offer a standard service that can be opened as easily as running water in an apartment building. 

Lectori salutem, Anthelme de Cyrénac
“The mind likes what confirms its knowledge better than what contradicts it.” Gaston Bachelard