What's in a Cloud
Cloud Computing has been delivering Software as a Service (SaaS) for some time now, and for nearly as long those terms have been confused and misused. Many professionals who take advantage of Cloud Computing and/or SaaS every day don’t understand the distinction or how those terms relate to their businesses. In this blog post I’ll clear the air on terms like Cloud Computing, SaaS, and how they touch 77% of the North American population and the 1.73 billion worldwide internet users today. Many of those users entered the world of Cloud Computing and SaaS without ever realizing they were doing so, through early applications like free Hotmail accounts.
In the Beginning
Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, is often credited with first using the term “Cloud Computing” in the mainstream media in 2006. Software as a Service (SaaS) was first officially coined by the Software & Information Industry Association in a 2001 article. But, like all technical terminology that makes it into main-stream media, the technical under-pinning has been in place for years.
I’ll get to what makes Cloud Computing and SaaS tick in a later post – for now let’s define some terminology a little more clearly.
What is SaaS?
CIO magazine has a great definition of SaaS, or Software as a Service:
Generally speaking, it’s software that’s developed and hosted by the SaaS vendor and which the end user customer accesses over the Internet. Unlike traditional packaged applications that users install on their computers or servers, the SaaS vendor owns the software and runs it on computers in its data center. The customer does not own the software but effectively rents it, usually for a monthly fee. SaaS is sometimes also known as hosted software or by its more marketing-friendly cousin, “on-demand.”
It’s great because it’s approachable andnot terribly dense with technical concepts. The valuable takeaways here are: SaaS applications are hosted by the vendor, accessed via a browser, and the pricing model is pay-to-play rather than a large up-front purchase price typical of the shrink-wrap software world.
How is Cloud Computing Different?
While the term “Cloud Computing” is often used interchangeably with “SaaS”, that’s not technically correct. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has a thoughtful definition of Cloud Computing and some under-pinning tenets. Click through if you’d like, but believe me it’s not as easy to grok.
The subtle way in which these terms relate can be thought of like this: companies can create SaaS applications because the Cloud Computing technologies make it possible. SaaS must be delivered via Cloud Computing, but Cloud Computing may be used for purposes other than delivering software as a service.
For example, the Total Attorneys High Performance Marketing product and Virtual Law Office product allow attorneys to work within a browser-based application. Our customers pay for those programs on an as-used basis (monthly or per prospective client). All technical infrastructure, automatic updates, end-to-end security, and diligent uptime are handled by Total Attorneys. That’s what makes them Software as a Service. Cloud Computing technologies allow us to provide applications with those characteristics behind-the-scenes.
In my next blog post I’ll go more in-depth on the Cloud Computing technologies. But for today, since media, consultants, and pundits tend to use Cloud Computing, SaaS, Cloud Apps, and Cloud-Based interchangeably, if the subtlety is lost, don’t sweat it. All you really need to know Cloud Computing technologies are used by companies to deliver Software as a Service to customers so they don’t have to worry about security, infrastructure, system updates and large cash outlays.
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