Moving To SaaS

MOVING TO SAAS
Best practices and pitfalls

Agenda
The move to SaaS
Pitfalls and opportunities
10 awkward questions
Why things bite back

This man is better at your job than you are.

Others have resisted change.

A history lesson.

1890: Factories near rivers.

1900: Electrical generators.

In just ten years…

1910: Electricity as a utility.

1920: All about the appliances.

“ I’m in oven technology.”

Today’s electricity
Relatively few options
110V or 220V
AC/DC
Portable or wired
Ubiquitous, taken for granted

Everything old is new again. =

2010: Utility computing.

Yes, this is going to happen faster than you expect.

Why Amazon is better than you. (Werner Vogels at NGN’07)

Buy 10,000 computers at a time.

Spread load around the world, throughout the day, across the year.

Get HA and DR for free.

Obsessed with making IT productive.

Consumption-based cost tracking built in.

Developers devoted to building dynamic capacity management tools.

GOOG even builds its own switches!

(Oh, and Google’s hosted services are free. )

Seriously.

“ I’ve got one word for you, boy. Just one word.”

Appliances. =

The appliance of computing is SaaS.

The evolution of computing (with apologies to Forrester) ISP 1.0 Access to the Internet Cloud Your apps on their dynamic infrastructure SaaS Your users on their Internet app BPaaS Your process in their language ISP 2.0 Access to a server on the Internet Colo Your servers in their cages ASP Your data on their apps on their servers

A spectrum of control Cloud Your apps on their dynamic infrastructure SaaS Your users on their Internet app BPaaS Your process in their language Maximum control: The machine is your playground Do whatever Minimum control: Your data in their forms Use their dropdowns Medium control: Your business logic on their platforms Use their coding language

Consider Salesforce’s APEX platform

Focusing on SaaS
What’s different?
Why do we switch?
What stops us?
What best practices are there?
SaaS Your users on their Internet app

So why do we switch?

Much better operational effectiveness
SaaS fixes this
Deliver application capacity as needed
Ensure efficient use of assets
Deliver apps & services quickly Efficient, cost-effective

Lower total cost of ownership
On-demand TCO less than half that of physical operations (Yankee)
Companies use just 16% of the software they buy (2005 IDC survey)

They already passed the audit
Vertically-focused SaaS amortizes legal compliance across customers
HIPPA
OSHA

We can’t do what they can
Native advantages
Google Forms vs. Excel

They benefit from network effects
Development community, extensibility, partners

We can sharpen strategic focus
Outsource what’s not core
IT isn’t strategic
Productivity is

What you don’t need to worry about
Defining the infrastructure
Scaling
Consumption billing
Resiliency
Contractual obligations
Installation
Already done! Virtual & dynamic Built in On their way out Already there Byproduct of clustering

Pricing pitfall
People claim it’s too expensive after all.
Make sure finance is involved early
Accounted for differently
Beware the myth of amortization
Know the true costs of server ownership
Include all the costs
Helpdesk, DR, storage, upgrades, staffing, etc.

Customization pitfall
Everyone needs “just this one little change.”
You won’t spend a lot of time stacking machines
But you will be showing business users how to customize the app
Expect lots of trial-and-error tweaking
Try to define business needs up front
Identify a champion within each business unit
Otherwise, they’ll find a reason to claim the new app doesn’t meet their needs

http://www.customware.net/repository/download/attachments/6389868/create-s-control.png

Visibility pitfall
You can’t see anything about your users.
Demand reports from your provider
Consider how to analyze productivity, bad behavior

Helpdesk pitfall
Escalation and support paths unclear.
Define who handles what problems
Decide how to tell who’s to blame
How do you know if it’s you or them?
Ensure you have named contacts at the provider
Set response targets and escalation paths
How fast can you get them to escalate it?

Traffic & usage pitfall
The new application significantly changes load on the network, undermining other systems.
Model the network with outbound traffic
Expect firewall changes
Consider time-of-day usage changes
Upgrade bandwidth early

Mobility pitfall
With widely available web UI, everyone expects it to work anywhere on any device.
Know what devices you support
Decide how to log access
Someone will use an iPhone

Legislation pitfall
Your intellectual property isn’t yours any more.
You will use APIs
Make sure what you build is your property
Consider GPL3
Security audits will happen
Make sure you’re allowed to conduct them
Is the provider compelled to help?
Do you need code inspection?

Performance/availability pitfall
The application is slow, or not reliable.
Agree on performance and availability SLAs
For whom ?
What function ?
From where ?
From what component ?
Will have what performance ?
And what availability ?
In what timeframe ?
Clearly state your recourses
“ Using the $100/mo. subscription.”
“ Bank tellers will be able to log in from North American branches with a host latency of under 3 seconds , and will have 99.95% availability during business hours ”

Accounts and SSO pitfall
Activation & termination.
Complexity increases with multiple providers
Ensure there’s a roadmap for SSO
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joelogon/2122303827/

Data I/O pitfall
If you can’t get your data, you can’t migrate.
Lose important bargaining chip
Grab all data
All records
All relations
All metadata
In a standardized format
Several times a year

Firehose pitfall
Your users are overwhelmed and panic.
Decide what extensions are most popular
Roll them out over time to your organization
Reminds them why you went SaaS

Outsourcing pitfall
Failure to commit to the change in focus leaves you supporting half a process.
Once part of a process is gone, how much can you shed?
Physical I/O (mailing, shipping)
Third-party systems (payment, banking, order entry)
Telephony and messaging (VOIP, dialing)
Get executive and financial sponsorship for this!

Upgrade pitfall
When the SaaS upgrades, you’re dragged along.
Get good warning about upgrades
Ensure training is part of support agreement
If possible, upgrade when you want to

Extensibility pitfall
The app isn’t quite right after all.
Make sure you can extend it
With your own code and their APIs
In their development environment
Can you attach new fields to every data structure?
Can you develop to web services?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markklotz/2370944091/

Cultural pitfall #1
Organization doesn’t embrace the new app.
IT is the biggest holdout
Built on a “plan, procure, provision” mindset
Who cares about this process?
Facilities, storage, monitoring, capacity planning, finance, networking
Move it or lose it
Show IT how it retains employment, usefulness by embracing SaaS as a new platform

Cultural pitfall #2
Executives get post-purchase regret.
Beware the HIPPO problem
HIghest Paid Person’s Opinion
http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertmiller/343459218/

Cultural pitfall #3
You’re already reliant on SaaS without knowing it.
Developers already doing it
No longer ask for a server
Consider Quickbase
Line of Business went around you
Bring it back into the fold without looking defensive
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sfildes/1804911191/

Chris:
You’ve got a process you didn’t know about
Match your business operation to the SaaS provider through trial and error
Find out where the “hidden process” that people use is lurking

Ten nasty questions to ask. (Or, how to get a better price from your SaaS provider.)

Can I get all my data from you?

Is the code I write to customize it portable?

Can you tell me where my servers are?

Is the app legally usable from anywhere in the world?

What kinds of SLA and availability reports do you have?

How do I dispute my bill, and what proof do you have?

What privacy guarantees do you have in place?

What APIs do you offer, how are they supported, and where are the docs?

Can I keep users on an older version while I train them on the new one?

Can I back up and restore configurations?

Why things bite back. Unforeseen consequences and the cautionary tale of the iron.

What might bite back?

Infrastructure transparency. We need to see where data lives after all.

Portability and dependency. A whole new kind of vendor lock-in.

Portfolio management tools. Too many SaaS tools to deal with. {Pics of Bitcurrent’s?}

Rogue applications. When it’s costless to turn something up, everyone will.

SaaS becomes the middleman. If buyer and seller use the same SaaS, does it become a marketplace?

Social networking. Shared apps have shared users.

Security. Much easier to do bad things when an account is compromised.

Competitive advantage. Don’t SaaS what makes you special. {Fedex}

QUESTIONS?

Thank You.

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Moving To SaaS

by Alistair Croll

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