IWMS in the “Cloud”

Lucernex President, Joe Valeri (see Joe’s management summary here), discusses ASP, SaaS and Cloud Computing for IWMS solutions. You can read the original post on Lucernex’ website.

When Lucernex started in 2000 we were the first IWMS to deliver our entire application as 100% Web-based, delivered as an Application Service Provider (ASP) solution. In reality we did not know it at the time but we were actually a Software as a Service (SaaS) vendor even then (according to Wikipedia it was coined in a February 2001 article written by the Software & Information Industry’s (SIIA) eBusiness Division). The difference to end users is largely invisible (except in the lower price) but to a software vendor the difference drives flexibility, costs (hence price to end-user) and focus. The next step is “Cloud Computing”, a buzz word for a service that provides equipment to host applications while doing all of the IT management on a secure environment optimized for performance and scalability.

Since this is not an article on the differences between ASP, SaaS and Cloud Computing in general, I will summarize very briefly below and refer the reader to Demystifying SaaS vs Cloud for a more complete discussion. In truth there are hundreds of these articles and even they don’t all agree.

Application Service Provider (ASP) – Web-based, hosted version of an application. Separate databases and servers for each client. ASP is much like the old model of selling software where the application was put behind a client’s firewall but instead, with ASP, the application is moved inside someone else’s firewall.

Software as a Service (SaaS) – multi-tenant databases and shared architecture. The vendor typically owns the hardware. SaaS can be delivered in a vendor’s data center, a collocation center or a true cloud computing environment.

Cloud Computing – Sotware applications that are delivered in a Cloud Computing center which take advantage of new technologies like virtualization and SAN storage to deliver optimal bandwidth, response times, storage and IT management. These centers typically use massive enterprise hardware owned and serviced by the Cloud center. The software vendor simply leases space in the “Cloud” and sells access to clients.