SaaS (Software as a Service) is a software licensing and distribution model. Instead of downloading software to run locally on your PC, the program is hosted by a third-party vendor and then accessed by the user. According to many reports on the software services market, the growth rate of SaaS in the past few years has been very high, about 16.4% per year. Thus, it can be seen that SaaS holds many potentials and development opportunities, becoming one of the leading trends of the current technology village. In the article, we will help you have a deep understanding of SaaS and advantages and disadvantages of SaaS.
What is SaaS?
When you have not learned about SaaS, you may think it is not popular. However, in fact, SaaS is quite popular and you must be using at least one of those software services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Adobe Creative Cloud, …
SaaS is an acronym for Software as a Solution, which means service-based software. This is a model based on the licensing and delivery of software application services. Accordingly, the vendor will not directly sell the usual types of software (the types of programs downloaded and installed in each computer), but they will program the software and maintain them to operate on the web platform. If customers want to use these features, just go to the website and pay a fee depending on the service package they choose.
In fact, SaaS is not a very new model, but rather has undergone a development since the 1960s. At that time, corporations were using software packages to connect users to mainframe systems for the purpose of providing computational utilities. By the 1990s, with the Internet boom, SaaS was deployed within the enterprise so employees could access corporate resources, including software located on central servers. In the using environment, SaaS is also deployed with popular software including webmail and photo sharing services.
Currently, SaaS is applied in many different fields including office software, chat software, statistical computing software, customer management software, human resource management software, and online games, …
Advantages of SaaS
SaaS has become a very popular platform because it has many advantages including:
Update Capability: Because the software stored on the server, the upgrade is centralized. Contrary to the traditional model, the software will need to be upgraded on each individual machine. In other words, SaaS can be easily maintained with the latest software version at any time.
Hardware: With server-based software, personal computers do not need to perform a hardware upgrade, and failure to meet the minimum specifications does not pose any problems.
Cost Saving: With the subscription model, the cost of acquisition (upfront) of a business is often lowered. In addition, you can add more users as needed to help businesses easily expand as required.
Fast Deployment: Since software does not need to be installed and configured on individual machines, the deployment with SaaS becomes much faster.
Accessibility: Get access to SaaS applications that only need a browser and internet connection, allowing users to log in from anywhere. In addition, the user’s data is stored in the cloud, not on the individual user’s PC, thus supporting the ability to collaborate and share work with other users.
Disadvantage of SaaS
Although SaaS possesses many outstanding advantages, the model also has disadvantages.
Data Security: For sensitive data, such as in the healthcare or legal sectors, sensitive information is often off the company’s servers, thus increasing management issues: permissions, privacy, and security.
Version Issues: One plus point of SaaS is that it supports all users who can own the latest software version, however, for a number of different reasons such as: user education, hardware integration or the need for some important features that are only available on a particular version, for which the company may want to keep the old version of the software. But SaaS does not support this by automatically updating the latest version.
Internet Connection: To use SaaS applications, an internet connection is required. However, for those times when the user is disconnected, such as when traveling on a plane (although more in-flight Wi-Fi services are now available) or the internet stops working at the property, SaaS will also be unavailable.
Depending on the speed of the internet connection and the required resources, SaaS may operate at a slower speed than the software running locally.
Lack of integration features: With SaaS, the ability to integrate with other programs is less than traditional software.
In conclusion, SaaS has many advantages over disadvantages and now running SaaS-based software in the cloud computing model instead of on-premises is becoming a prominent trend. Today, businesses are moving away from traditional models, basic business needs can even be addressed by SaaS. From popular free services such as Microsoft, Google to customized solutions on demand, SaaS has gradually dominated the market to become a standard platform in the 21st century.
