In the beginning there was SaaS..

Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback on my blog postings. One comment that has surfaced a few times has been the level at which the postings are written. There is an assumed level of knowledge they are targeted at. However, I would like everyone to get something out of these postings so I would like to provide a beginner's guide to Utility computing and define some of the common TLAs and FLAs used. (See below definitions if you missed those)

• Utility Computing - The concept is similar to electric utilities we are all familiar with. In this model, you get electrical service to your house under an SLA and you pay for what you use of it. It's exactly the same with utility computing. An SLA is provided and companies use as little or as much computing resources as they wish and get charged only for what they use. Why do this? Providers can build large scale, fully fault tolerate environments that non-providers cannot afford to build and charge them for using pieces of it. It's a "the parts are worth more than the whole" business model. For users, they get all the advantages of this large scale, fully fault tolerant environment without having to shell out millions in capital expenditure and without the administrative overhead. It's a win-win for all.
  
• SaaS-(pronounced sass) Software As A Service is a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand. So unlike a traditional on premise solution, customers don't ever own the software, they are only licensed to use it. They only get charged for how much they use as well, whether that be by the hour or per user per month.
  
• PaaS- (pronounced pass) Platform As A Service is the delivery of a computing platform and solution stack as a service. Companies such as Amazon, Force.com, and Microsoft are offering complete development environments and a complete infrastructure stack via the Internet.
  
• Cloud Computing-A style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over a network. In the cloud, the concept behind where an application is located disappears. The physical location and even the physical hardware ceases to stay static or be relevant. Applications in a cloud computing environment run on a bank of systems in multiple locations. This guarantees their performance, scalability, and resiliency.
  
• Public and Private clouds-Cloud computing can take place in a private cloud within an organization's network or publicly where the resources exist on the Internet.
  
• Azure>-Microsoft's PaaS offering.
  
• AWS-Amazon Web Services. Online retailer Amazon provides infrastructure web services platform in the cloud. They sell pieces of their vast computing resources. You can purchase individual pieces (described below) or a complete infrastructure.
  
• S3- Simple Storage Service. An Amazon service providing online storage.
  
• EC2-Elastic Compute Cloud. Another Amazon service providing resizable compute capacity.
  
• TLA- Three letter Acronym.
  
• FLA-Four Letter Acronym.
  

I hope this helps clear up some of the techno-babble surrounding utility computing. The concepts are very different from the current model of infrastructure and software distribution and licensing, but are easy to understand. In fact there is little that's new about it at all. Most of you have had an online e-mail account for years now. You don't own the mail software. You are licensed to use it. It's a utility application. You pay for what you use and it's available for you when you need it. It's licensed as SaaS. You are reading this on a blog. The blog software doesn't run on your computer. The creation didn't really happen on my computer either. The creation and publishing are SaaS applications. Thanks to these earlier successes and a more robust Internet, more complex software such as office production packages and financial packages are now being offered as SaaS.


"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."

-Frank Zappa

The Blues Brothers, master code developers

It's Monday morning and I'm reading tweets, my e-mail (home and work), and the various blogs that I track. Unable to think of a good posting myself right now as I am only half way through my first cup of coffee, I offer you this:

The Blues Brothers, master code developers

I must add one more allegory. Jake's wife (played wonderfully by Carrie Fisher in the film) is the stakeholder that comes from out of no where. The project is moving along despite a few pitfalls along the way. Suddenly the requirements change from another person at the customer's organization who at the last moment has decided that they need their fingers in this project. This is the moment when you think everything is about to fail. Project lead Jake pulls out all the BS he can muster and lets the project continue as planned.

Does this ring true?

Next: Can we create an allegory between project management and Star Wars?

Customer Service makes the difference

Tonight, the family ordered dinner out from a small local restaurant. My wife ordered the meal and I picked up the dinner on the way home from work. Arriving at the busy restaurant, I was asked to confirm my order, but I didn't know what was ordered. I answered yes and took the food home. The order was wrong. Not only was it wrong but the meal they sent me home with was linguine and clams and my wife is deathly allergic to clams. So, she called them and explained that they made a mistake. The restaurant decided to send a staff member with the correct entrée to my door. They included a dessert and an apology. On a busy Friday night, this restaurant was willing to be without a staff member for about half hour to remedy my situation. Of course, I will order from this restaurant again and do one better, I will recommend them to everyone. This is the benefit of great customer service.


As a multitude of players enter the SaaS marketplace, leaders will emerge. You have many choices when you wish to dine out. After deciding whether you want Italian or Japanese, you will make your decision on based on price, quality, and customer service. Successful cloud companies will offer the triple threat, price, performance, and excellent customer service. Without being a leader in all three categories, SaaS and PaaS providers will fail. Fifty percent of all new restaurants fail within the first two years. They fail due to loosing out to the competition on at least one of the three factors. I predict new cloud companies (and established companies entering the cloud marketplace) will experience a similar fifty percent failure rate when they fail to take the lead on price, performance, and customer service.

Open Source growth by SaaS adoption

Richard Stallman Interview about Utility computing


This is the best quote of the interview:

"It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity, it's a marketing hype campaign, Somebody is saying this is inevitable – and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true."


While I agree that nothing is inevitable, Utility computing will be revolutionary. As vendors compete in the Utility computing space, they will be forced to lower overhead. Open source is great way to do that and with the economy of scale offered by Utility computing open source will grow.

Utility computing works because someone can build a large bank of resources and charge out for small bits of it. Not everyone can build an environment that fast and resilient without a serious draw on their margins. The same argument was made of open source engineers. They are costly. However with a few large companies employing those engineers, they can again build an excellent coding environment and sell small pieces to a lot of customers for a large profit margin. Smaller companies will use those engineers as well to build vertical specific applications on top of Utility computing environments. Again, with many players in the game, lower overhead is a must and therefore open source is a must.


In short, without an 800 pound gorilla in the room, it's up to the fastest, most marketed, and cheapest players to rule