SAP implementation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

SAP implementation (Systems, Applications & Products implementation) refers to the name of the German company SAP SE, and is the whole of processes that defines a method to implement the SAP ERP enterprise resource planning software in an organization. The SAP implementation method described in this entry is a generic method and not a specific implementation method as such. It is based on best practices and case studies from various literature sources and presents a collection of processes and products that make up a complete implementation method to allow any organization to plan and execute the implementation of SAP software.

Introduction

The implement of SAP software, such as SAP R/3 is almost always a massive operation that brings a lot of changes in the organization. The whole process can take up to several years. Virtually every person in the organization is involved, whether they are part of the SAP technical support organization (TSO) or the actual end-users of the SAP software. The resulting changes that the implementation of SAP generates are intended to reach high level goals, such as improved communication and increased return on information (as people will work with the same information). It is therefore important that the implementation process is planned and executed using a solid method. There are various SAP implementation methods. An example of how one company, Robert Bosch GmbH, implemented SAP R/3 over 10 years is available. This study shows that designing IT architecture is critical in SAP implementation practices.

IEEE scholar journal reports an industrial case in which the senior management successfully dealt with a troubled SAP R/3 implementation in an international fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company during 2001 and 2002. (Lui 2008)

Overview

Concept	Definition
CHANGE MANAGEMENT	Activities involved in (1) defining and installing new values, attitudes, norms, and behaviors within an organization that support new ways of doing work and overcome resistance to change; (2) building consensus among customers and stakeholders on specific changes designed to better meet their needs; and (3) planning, testing, and implementing all aspects of the transition from one organizational structure or business process to another. (www.gao.gov)
CHANGE MANAGEMENT DOCUMENTATION.	All documentation that is required and being delivered whilst performing change management, e.g. the functional test cases and all the other documents a new end-user of SAP requires and the various tools and approaches used to manage change by the TSO. (Anderson, 2003)
COST OF OWNERSHIP ANALYSIS	Determination of where and when the costs are inquired within the context of the SAP solution stack and ongoing operations. The analysis addresses all internal and external costs, both one-time as well as recurring (Anderson, 2003)
CUTOVER	The process of transitioning from one system to a new system
DATA CENTER	A data center is a facility used for housing a large amount of electronic equipment, typically computers and communications equipment.
DATA CENTER REQUIREMENT	A requirement for the SAP data center, i.e. a physical requirement like power requirements, a rack requirement, a network infrastructure requirement or a requirement to the network server. (Anderson, 2003)
DISASTER RECOVERY (DR) REQUIREMENT	Requirement that focuses on downtime that lasts many hours to days or even weeks (Anderson, 2003)
FUNCTIONAL TEST CASE	A set of conditions or variables under which a tester will determine if a certain business process works
HIGH AVAILABILITY (HA) REQUIREMENT	Requirements that describes the amount of time that the system needs to be available to satisfy the needs of the users. (Anderson, 2003)
INSTALLATION DOCUMENTATION	All documentation related to the installation of an end-to-end SAP solution (Anderson, 2003)
OPERATIONS MANUAL	The collection of current state system documentation, day-to-day and other regularly scheduled operations tasks, various installation and operations checklists and how-to process documents. (Anderson, 2003)
SAP	SAP SE is Europe's biggest software company. The head office is in Walldorf, Germany. SAP was founded in 1972 as Systemanalyse and Programmentwicklung ("Systems Analysis and Program Development") by five former IBM employees in Mannheim, Germany.
SAP IMPLEMENTATION PROJECT PLAN	A comprehensive project plan that contains all products that are delivered whilst performing an SAP implementation project (Anderson, 2003)
SOLUTION STACK	Set of software subsystems or components needed to deliver a fully functional solution, e.g. a product or service.
SOLUTION STACK PARTNERS LIST	A list of all vendors that deliver the products that make up the SAP solution stack (Anderson, 2003)
SOLUTION VISION	A vision of the future-state of the SAP solution (Anderson, 2003)
STRESS TEST PLAN	A test plan that is focused at determining the stability of a given system or entity. It involves testing beyond normal operational capacity, often to a breaking point, in order to observe the results.
TEST PLAN	A detail of how the test will proceed, who will do the testing, what will be tested, in how much time the test will take place, and to what quality level the test will be performed. (IEEE 829)
TRAINING	The acquisition of knowledge, skills, and attitudes as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relates to specific useful skills (www.practicalsap.com)
TRAINING PLAN	Consisting of training units, a training plan is the result of hierarchical decompositions of a training goal, tailored according to the learning preferences and prior knowledge of the trainee. A plan is the means by which the trainee satisfies the goal. (www.ece.eps.hw.ac.uk/)
TSO	Technical Support Organization. The people that are committed to implementation and management of SAP. (Anderson, 2003)
TSO CHART	A chart that depicts the structure of the TSO. (Anderson, 2003)

Activity table

The following table provides a summary of all of the activities that form the SAP implementation process. These activities will be described with more detail and elaborated with examples in the rest of this entry.

Activity	Sub-Activity	Description
Project preparation	Craft solution vision	Refine and communicate a SOLUTION VISION of the future-state of the SAP solution, to sketch a design that meets both business and financial requirements. The focus should be on the company's core business and how the SAP solution will better enable that core business to be successful. Some of the guidance and key requirements for how to put together an ERP and SAP business case for ROI, business benefit, and success includes focusing on competitive pressures, value propositions, and how the solution enables success.
	Design and initially staff the SAP TSO	Design and staff the key positions of the SAP Technical Support Organization (TSO), the organization that is charged with addressing, designing, implementing and supporting the SAP solution.
Sizing and blueprinting	Perform cost of ownership analysis	Perform a COST OF OWNERSHIP ANALYSIS to determine how to get the best business solution for the least money i.e. to determine where and when the costs are incurred within the context of the SAP solution stack.
	Identify high availability and disaster recovery requirements	Determine all HIGH AVAILABILITY and DISASTER RECOVERY REQUIREMENTS, to plan what to do with later downtime of the SAP system
	Engage SAP solution stack vendors	Select the best SAP hardware and software technology partners for all layers and components of the SAP SOLUTION STACK, based on a side-by-side sizing comparison
	Staff TSO	Staff the bulk of the TSO, i.e. fill the positions that directly support the near-term objectives of the implementation, which are to develop and begin installation/implementation of the SAP data center.
	Execute training	Train the various members of the SAP TSO, like data center specialists, high availability specialist and network specialists and train the end-users to give all the required SAP knowledge and skills
	Setup SAP DATA CENTER	Build a new SAP DATA CENTER facility or transform the current data center into a foundation capable of supporting the SAP SOLUTION STACK
	Perform installations	Install the (My)SAP components and technological foundations like a web application server or enterprise portal.
	Round out support for SAP	Identify and staff the remaining TSO roles, e.g. roles that relate to help desk work and other such support providing work.
SAP functional development	Address Change Management	Develop a planned approach to the changes in the organization. The objective is to maximize the collective efforts of all people involved in the change and minimize the risk of failure of implementing the changes related to the SAP implementation.
	Address SAP systems and operations management	Create a foundation for the SAP systems management and SAP computer operations, by creating a SAP OPERATIONS MANUAL and by evaluating SAP management applications.
	Perform functional, integration and regression tests	Test the SAP business processes, by executing functional tests to ensure that business processes work, integration tests to ensure that the organization's business processes work together with other business processes and regression tests to prove that a specific set of data and processes yield consistent and repeatable results.
Final Preparation	Perform systems and stress tests	Plan, script, execute and monitor SAP STRESS TESTS, to see if the expectations of the end users, defined in service level agreements, will be met.
	Prepare for cutover	Plan, prepare and execute the CUTOVER, by creating a CUTOVER PLAN that describes all cutover tasks that have to be performed before the actual go-live
Go Live		Turn on the SAP system for the end-users

Implementation processes

Project preparation

Mission Key is also what defines slack.

Design and initially staff the SAP TSO.

 

The first major step of the project preparation phase is to design and initially staff an SAP technical support organization (TSO), which is the organization that is charged with addressing and designing a  

Craft solution vision.

The second project preparation job is to define a so-called solution vision, i.e. a vision of the future-state of the SAP solution, where it is important to address both business and financial requirements (budgets). The main focus within the vision should be on the company’s core business and how the SAP solution will better enable that core business to be successful. Next to that, the shortcomings of the current systems should be described and short but clear requirements should be provided regarding availability (uptime), security, manageability and scalability of the SAP system.

Sizing and blueprinting.

The next phase is often referred to as the sizing and blueprinting phase and forms the main chunk of the implementation process. The phase is illustrated below.

This phase starts with performing a total cost of ownership analysis (TCO analysis) to determine how to get the best business solution at the lowest costs. This means to compare SAP solution stack options and alternatives and then determine what costs each part of the stack will bring and when these costs will be incurred. Parts of the stack are for example the hardware, operating system and database, which form the acquisition costs. Next to that, there should be taken a look at recurring costs like maintenance costs and downtime costs. Instead of performing a complete TCO analysis for various solution stack alternatives that would like to compare, it can be wise just to do a so-called delta analysis, where only the differences between solutions (stacks) are identified and analyzed. The image at the right depicts the essence of a delta analysis.

 

Identify high availability and disaster recovery requirements

The next step is identifying the high availability requirements and the more serious disaster recovery requirements. This is to plan what to do with later downtime of the SAP system, caused by e.g. hardware failures, application failures or power outages. It is important to calculate the cost of downtime, so that an organization has a good idea of its actual availability requirements.

Engage SAP solution stack vendors

A true sizing process is to engage the SAP solution stack vendors, which is the next step. This means selecting the best SAP hardware and software technology partners for all layers and components of the solution stack, based on a side-by-side sizing comparison. The most important factors that are of influence here are the estimated numbers of (concurrent) users and batch sizes. A wise thing to do is to involve SAP SE itself to let them create a sizing proposal stating the advised solution stack, before moving to SAP's technology partners/SAP vendors, like Accenture, HP and IBM. A simplified solution stack is depicted at the right, showing the many layers for which software and hardware has to be acquired. Note the overlap with the OSI model. 

Staff TSO

The TSO (Technical Support Organisation) is the most important resource for an organization that is implementing SAP, so staffing the TSO is a vital job which can consume a lot of time. In a previous phase, the organization should already have staffed the most vital positions. At this point the organization should staff the bulk of the TSO, i.e. fill the positions that directly support the near-term objectives of the implementation, which are to develop and begin the installation/implementation of the SAP data center. Examples are: data center experts, network infrastructure experts, security specialists and database administration experts.

There are many ways to find the right people within or outside the organization for all of the TSO positions and it depends on the organization how much time it wants to spend on staffing.

Training

 

One of the most vital stages of the implementation process is training. Few people within an organization are SAP experts or even have worked with SAP software. It is therefore important to train the end users but especially the SAP TSO: the people who design and implement the solution. The usual activity is to train a group of key users who in turn train the staff (source: practicalsap.com). The organisation's key users must be involved in the implementation project and testing of the system. Many people within the TSO need all kinds of training. Some examples of these positions:

• SAP Network Specialists
• SAP Database Administrators
• SAP Security specialists
• Documentation specialists
• Et cetera

All of these people need to acquire the required SAP knowledge and skills or even SAP certifications through training. Moreover, people need to learn to do business in a totally new way. To define how much SAP training every person needs, a company can make use of a skillset matrix. With this matrix, a manager can identify who possesses what knowledge, to manage and plan training, by defining the height of expertise with a number between e.g. 1 and 4 for each skill for each employee.

Setup SAP data center

The next step is to set up the SAP data center. This means either building a new data center facility or transforming the current data center into a foundation capable of supporting the SAP solution stack, i.e. all of the technology layers and components (SAP software products) in a productive SAP installation. The most important factor when designing the data center is availability. The high availability and disaster recovery requirements which should have been defined earlier, give a good idea of the required data center requirements to host the SAP software. Data center requirements can be a:

• Physical requirement like power requirements
• Rack requirement
• Network infrastructure requirement or
• Requirement to the network server.

Perform installations

 

The following step is to install the required SAP software parts which are called components and technological foundations like a web application server or enterprise portals, to a state ready for business process configuration. The most vital sub steps are to prepare your OS, prepare the database server and then start installing SAP software. Here it is important to use installation guides, which are published for each SAP component or technology solution by SAP SE. Examples of SAP components are:

• R/3 Enterprise — Transaction Processing
• mySAP BI — Business Information Warehouse
• mySAP CRM — Customer Relationship Management
• mySAP KW — Knowledge Warehouse
• mySAP PLM — Product Lifecycle Management
• mySAP SCM — Supply Chain Management
• mySAP SEM — Strategic Enterprise Management
• mySAP SRM — Supplier Relationship Management
• mySAP HCM — Human Capital Management

Round out support for SAP

Before moving into the functional development phase, the organization should identify and staff the remaining TSO roles, e.g. roles that relate to helpdesk work and other such support providing work.

Realization

The next phase is the functional development phase, where it is all about change management and testing. This phase is depicted below.

Address change management

The next challenge for an organization is all about change management / change control, which means to develop a planned approach to the changes the organization faces. The objective here is to maximize the collective efforts of all people involved in the change and to minimize the risk of failure of implementing the changes related to the SAP implementation.

The implementation of SAP software will most surely come with many changes and an organization can expect many natural reactions, i.e. denial, to these changes. To fight this, it is most important to create a solid project team dedicated to change management and to communicate the solution vision and goals of this team. This team should be prepared to handle the many change issues that come from various sources like:

• End-user requests
• End-User regular activities
• Operations
• Data center team
• DBA group
• Systems management

SAP systems and operations management

 

Next thing is to create a foundation for the SAP systems management and SAP computer operations, by creating a SAP operations manual and by evaluating SAP management applications. The manual is a collection of current state system documentation, day-to-day and other regularly scheduled operations tasks, various installation and operations checklists and how-to process documents.

Functional, integration and regression testing

Testing is important before going live with any system. Before going live with a SAP system, it is vital to do many different kinds of testing, since there is often a large, complex infrastructure of hardware and software involved. Both requirements as well as quality parameters are to be tested. Important types of testing are:

• Functional testing: to test using functional use cases, i.e. a set of conditions or variables under which a tester will determine if a certain business process works
• Integration testing
• Regression testing

All tests should be preceded by creating solid test plans. 

Agreements will be met. This can be done with SAP's standard application benchmarks, to benchmark the organization's configurations against configurations that have been tested by SAP's hardware technology partners. Again, a test plan should be created at first.

Final preparation

Prepare for cutover

 

The final phase before going live with SAP is often referred to as the cutover phase, which is the process of transitioning from one system to a new one. The organization needs to plan, prepare and execute the cutover, by creating a cutover plan that describes all cutover tasks that have to be performed before the actual go-live. Examples of cutover tasks are:

• Review and update all systems-related operations procedures like backup policies and system monitoring
• Assign ownership of SAP's functional processes to individuals
• Let SAP SE do a GoingLive check, to get their blessing to go live with the system
• Lock down the system, i.e. do not make any more changes to the SAP system

Software as a service

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_service 

 

Software as a service (SaaS /sæs/) (also known as subscribeware or rentware) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is sometimes referred to as "on-demand software", and was formerly referred to as "software plus services" by Microsoft.

SaaS applications are also known as Web-based software, on-demand software and hosted software. The term "software as a service" (SaaS) is considered to be part of the nomenclature of cloud computing, along with infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), desktop as a service (DaaS), managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), datacenter as a service (DCaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS).

SaaS apps are typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. SaaS has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), management information systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), geographic information systems (GIS), and service desk management. SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all leading enterprise software companies.

According to a Gartner estimate, SaaS sales in 2018 were expected to grow 23% to $72 billion.

History

Centralized hosting of business applications dates back to the 1960s. Starting in that decade, IBM and other mainframe providers conducted a service bureau business, often referred to as time-sharing or utility computing. Such services included offering computing power and database storage to banks and other large organizations from their worldwide data centers.

The expansion of the Internet during the 1990s brought about a new class of centralized computing, called application service providers (ASP). ASPs provided businesses with the service of hosting and managing specialized business applications, with the goal of reducing costs through central administration and through the solution provider's specialization in a particular business application. Two of the world's pioneers and largest ASPs were USI, which was headquartered in the Washington, DC area, and Futurelink Corporation, headquartered in Irvine, California.

Software as a Service essentially extends the idea of the ASP model. The term software as a service (SaaS), however, is commonly used in more specific settings:

• While most initial ASP's focused on managing and hosting third-party independent software vendors' software, as of 2012 SaaS vendors typically develop and manage their own software.
• Whereas many initial ASPs offered more traditional client-server applications, which require installation of software on users' personal computers, SaaS solutions of today rely predominantly on the Web and only requires a web browser to use.
• Whereas the software architecture used by most initial ASPs mandated maintaining a separate instance of the application for each business, as of 2012 SaaS solutions normally utilize a multitenant architecture, in which the application serves multiple businesses and users, and partitions its data accordingly.

The acronym first appeared in the goods and services description of a USPTO trademark, filed on September 23, 1985.

DbaaS (database as a service) has emerged as a sub-variety of SaaS, and is a type of cloud database.

Distribution

The cloud (or SaaS) model has no physical need for indirect distribution because it is not distributed physically and is deployed almost instantaneously, thereby negating the need for traditional partners and middlemen. However, as the market has grown, SaaS and managed service players have been forced to try to redefine their role.

Pricing

Unlike traditional software, which is conventionally sold as a perpetual license with an up-front cost (and an optional ongoing support fee), SaaS providers generally price applications using a subscription fee, most commonly a monthly fee or an annual fee. Consequently, the initial setup cost for SaaS is typically lower than the equivalent enterprise software. SaaS vendors typically price their applications based on some usage parameters, such as the number of users using the application. However, because in a SaaS environment customers' data reside with the SaaS vendor, opportunities also exist to charge per transaction, event, or other units of value, such as the number of processors required.

The relatively low cost for user provisioning (i.e., setting up a new customer) in a multitenant environment enables some SaaS vendors to offer applications using the freemium model. In this model, a free service is made available with limited functionality or scope, and fees are charged for enhanced functionality or larger scope. Some other SaaS applications are completely free to users, with revenue being derived from alternative sources such as advertising.

A key driver of SaaS growth is SaaS vendors' ability to provide a price that is competitive with on-premises software. This is consistent with the traditional rationale for outsourcing IT systems, which involves applying economies of scale to application operation, i.e., an outside service provider may be able to offer better, cheaper, more reliable applications.

Architecture

The vast majority of SaaS solutions are based on a multitenant architecture. With this model, a single version of the application, with a single configuration (hardware, network, operating system), is used for all customers ("tenants"). To support scalability, the application can be installed on multiple machines (called horizontal scaling). In some cases, a second version of the application is set up to offer a select group of customers access to pre-release versions of the applications (e.g., a beta version) for testing purposes. This is contrasted with traditional software, where multiple physical copies of the software — each potentially of a different version, with a potentially different configuration, and often customized — are installed across various customer sites. In this traditional model, each version of the application is based on a unique code.

Although an exception rather than the norm, some SaaS solutions do not use multitenancy, or use other mechanisms—such as virtualization—to cost-effectively manage a large number of customers in place of multitenancy. Whether multitenancy is a necessary component for software as a service is a topic of controversy.

There are two main varieties of SaaS:

Vertical SaaS

Software which answers the needs of a specific industry (e.g., software for the healthcare, agriculture, real estate, finance industries).

 

Horizontal SaaS

The products which focus on a software category (marketing, sales, developer tools, HR) but are industry neutral.

Characteristics

Although not all software-as-a-service applications share all traits, the characteristics below are common among many SaaS applications:

Configuration and customization

SaaS applications similarly support what is traditionally known as application configuration. In other words, like traditional enterprise software, a single customer can alter the set of configuration options (a.k.a. parameters) that affect its functionality and look-and-feel. Each customer may have its own settings (or: parameter values) for the configuration options. The application can be customized to the degree it was designed for based on a set of predefined configuration options. 

For example, to support customers' common need to change an application's look-and-feel so that the application appears to be having the customer's brand (or—if so desired—co-branded), many SaaS applications let customers provide (through a self-service interface or by working with application provider staff) a custom logo and sometimes a set of custom colors. The customer cannot, however, change the page layout unless such an option was designed for.

Accelerated feature delivery

SaaS applications are often updated more frequently than traditional software, in many cases on a weekly or monthly basis. This is enabled by several factors:

• The application is hosted centrally, so an update is decided and executed by the provider, not by customers.
• The application only has a single configuration, making development testing faster.
• The application vendor does not have to expend resources updating and maintaining backdated versions of the software, because there is only a single version.
• The application vendor has access to all customer data, expediting design and regression testing.
• The solution provider has access to user behavior within the application (usually via web analytics), making it easier to identify areas worthy of improvement.

Accelerated feature delivery is further enabled by agile software development methodologies. Such methodologies, which have evolved in the mid-1990s, provide a set of software development tools and practices to support frequent software releases.

Open integration protocols

Because SaaS applications cannot access a company's internal systems (databases or internal services), they predominantly offer integration protocols and application programming interfaces (APIs) that operate over a wide area network. Typically, these are protocols based on HTTP, REST, and SOAP. 

The ubiquity of SaaS applications and other Internet services and the standardization of their API technology has spawned the development of mashups, which are lightweight applications that combine data, presentation and functionality from multiple services, creating a compound service. Mashups further differentiate SaaS applications from on-premises software as the latter cannot be easily integrated outside a company's firewall.

Collaborative (and "social") functionality

Inspired by the success of online social networks and other so-called web 2.0 functionality, many SaaS applications offer features that let their users collaborate and share information. 

For example, many project management applications delivered in the SaaS model offer—in addition to traditional project planning functionality—collaboration features letting users comment on tasks and plans and share documents within and outside an organization. Several other SaaS applications let users vote on and offer new feature ideas. 

Although some collaboration-related functionality is also integrated into on-premises software, (implicit or explicit) collaboration between users or different customers is only possible with centrally hosted software.

OpenSaas

OpenSaaS refers to software as a service (SaaS) based on open source code. Similar to SaaS applications, Open SaaS is a web-based application that is hosted, supported and maintained by a service provider. While the roadmap for Open SaaS applications is defined by its community of users, upgrades and product enhancements are managed by a central provider. The term was coined in 2011 by Dries Buytaert, creator of the Drupal content management framework.

Andrew Hoppin, a former Chief Information Officer for the New York State Senate, has been a vocal advocate of OpenSaaS for government, calling it "the future of government innovation." He points to WordPress and Why Unified as a successful example of an OpenSaaS software delivery model that gives customers "the best of both worlds, and more options. The fact that it is open source means that they can start building their websites by self-hosting WordPress and customizing their website to their heart’s content. Concurrently, the fact that WordPress is SaaS means that they don’t have to manage the website at all -- they can simply pay WordPress.com to host it."

Drupal Gardens, a free web hosting platform based on the open source Drupal content management system, offers another example of what Forbes contributor Dan Woods calls a "new open-source model for SaaS". According to Woods, "Open source provides the escape hatch. In Drupal Gardens, users will be able to press a button and get a source code version of the Drupal code that runs their site along with the data from the database. Then, you can take that code, put it up at one of the hosting companies, and you can do anything that you would like to do."

Adoption drivers

Several important changes to the software market and technology landscape have facilitated the acceptance and growth of SaaS solutions:

• The growing use of web-based user interfaces by applications, along with the proliferation of associated practices (e.g., web design), continuously decreased the need for traditional client-server applications. Consequently, traditional software vendor's investment in software based on fat clients has become a disadvantage (mandating ongoing support), opening the door for new software vendors offering a user experience perceived as more "modern".
• The standardization of web page technologies (HTML, JavaScript, CSS), the increasing popularity of web development as a practice, and the introduction and ubiquity of web application frameworks like Ruby on Rails or Laravel (PHP) gradually reduced the cost of developing new SaaS solutions, and enabled new solution providers to come up with competitive solutions, challenging traditional vendors.
• The increasing penetration of broadband Internet access enabled remote centrally hosted applications to offer speed comparable to on-premises software.
• The standardization of the HTTPS protocol as part of the web stack provided universally available lightweight security that is sufficient for most everyday applications.
• The introduction and wide acceptance of lightweight integration protocols such as REST and SOAP enabled affordable integration between SaaS applications (residing in the cloud) with internal applications over wide area networks and with other SaaS applications.
• Implementing a Product Led Growth framework (Product Led Growth is a business development strategy that leverages product usage to drive customer acquisitions, conversions, and market expansion.) helps company lower costs, get to market more quickly, and more effectively produce the Saas Product that customers want.

Adoption challenges

Some limitations slow down the acceptance of SaaS and prohibit it from being used in some cases:

• Because data is stored on the vendor's servers, data security becomes an issue.
• SaaS applications are hosted in the cloud, far away from the application users. This introduces latency into the environment; for example, the SaaS model is not suitable for applications that demand response times in the milliseconds (OLTP).
• Multi-tenant architectures, which drive cost efficiency for SaaS solution providers, limit customization of applications for large clients, inhibiting such applications from being used in scenarios (applicable mostly to large enterprises) for which such customization is necessary.
• Some business applications require access to or integration with customer's current data. When such data are large in volume or sensitive (e.g. end-users' personal information), integrating them with remotely hosted software can be costly or risky, or can conflict with data governance regulations.
• Constitutional search/seizure warrant laws do not protect all forms of SaaS dynamically stored data. The end result is that a link is added to the chain of security where access to the data, and, by extension, misuse of these data, are limited only by the assumed honesty of third parties or government agencies able to access the data on their own recognizance.
• Switching SaaS vendors may involve the slow and difficult task of transferring very large data files over the Internet.
• Organizations that adopt SaaS may find they are forced into adopting new versions, which might result in unforeseen training costs, an increase in the probability that a user might make an error or instability from bugs in the newer software.
• Should the vendor of the software go out of business or suddenly EOL the software, the user may lose access to their software unexpectedly, which could destabilize their organization's current and future projects, as well as leave the user with older data they can no longer access or modify.
• Relying on an Internet connection means that data is transferred to and from a SaaS firm at Internet speeds, rather than the potentially higher speeds of a firm's internal network.
• Can the SaaS hosting company guarantee the uptime level agreed in the SLA (service level agreement)?

The standard model also has limitations:

• Compatibility with hardware, other software, and operating systems.
• Licensing and compliance problems (unauthorized copies of the software program putting the organization at risk of fines or litigation).
• Maintenance, support, and patch revision processes.

Healthcare applications

According to a survey by HIMSS Analytics, 83% of US IT healthcare organizations are now using cloud services with 9.3% planning to, whereas 67% of IT healthcare organizations are currently running SaaS-based applications.

Data escrow

Software as a service data escrow is the process of keeping a copy of critical software-as-a-service application data with an independent third party. Similar to source code escrow, where critical software source code is stored with an independent third party, SaaS data escrow applies the same logic to the data within a SaaS application. It allows companies to protect and insure all the data that resides within SaaS applications, protecting against data loss.

There are many and varied reasons for considering SaaS data escrow including concerns about vendor bankruptcy, unplanned service outages, and potential data loss or corruption. Many businesses either ensure that they are complying with their data governance standards or try to enhance their reporting and business analytics against their SaaS data. A research conducted by Clearpace Software Ltd. into the growth of SaaS showed that 85 percent of the participants wanted to take a copy of their SaaS data. A third of these participants wanted a copy on a daily basis.

Criticism

One notable criticism of SaaS comes from Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation, who refers to it as service as a software substitute (SaaSS). He considers the use of SaaSS to be a violation of the principles of free software. According to Stallman:

With SaaSS, the users do not have even the executable file that does their computing: it is on someone else's server, where the users can't see or touch it. Thus it is impossible for them to ascertain what it really does, and impossible to change it.

Not all SaaS products face this problem. In 2010, Forbes contributor Dan Woods noted that Drupal Gardens, a web hosting platform based on the open source Drupal content management system, is a "new open-source model for SaaS". He added:

Open source provides the escape hatch. In Drupal Gardens, users will be able to press a button and get a source code version of the Drupal code that runs their site along with the data from the database. Then, you can take that code, put it up at one of the hosting companies, and you can do anything that you would like to do.

Similarly, MediaWiki, WordPress and their many extensions are increasingly used for a wide variety of internal applications as well as public web services. Obtaining the code is relatively simple, as it is an integration of existing extensions, plug-ins, templates, etc. Actual customizations are rare, and usually quickly replaced by more standard publicly available extensions. There is additionally no guarantee the software source code obtained through such means accurately reflects the software system it claims to reflect.

Andrew Hoppin, a former Chief Information Officer for the New York State Senate, refers to this combination of SaaS and open source software as OpenSaaS and points to WordPress as another successful example of an OpenSaaS software delivery model that gives customers "the best of both worlds, and more options. The fact that it is open source means that they can start building their websites by self-hosting WordPress and customizing their website to their heart’s content. Concurrently, the fact that WordPress is SaaS means that they don’t have to manage the website at all – they can simply pay WordPress.com to host it."^[48] The cloud (or SaaS) model has no physical need for indirect distribution because it is not distributed physically and is deployed almost instantaneously, thereby negating the need for traditional partners and middlemen.

Integrated library system

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_library_system

An integrated library system (ILS), also known as a library management system (LMS), is an enterprise resource planning system for a library, used to track items owned, orders made, bills paid, and patrons who have borrowed.

An ILS usually comprises a relational database, software to interact with that database, and two graphical user interfaces (one for patrons, one for staff). Most ILSes separate software functions into discrete programs called modules, each of them integrated with a unified interface. Examples of modules might include:

• acquisitions (ordering, receiving, and invoicing materials)
• cataloging (classifying and indexing materials)
• circulation (lending materials to patrons and receiving them back)
• serials (tracking magazine, journals, and newspaper holdings)
• online public access catalog or OPAC (public user interface)

Each patron and item has a unique ID in the database that allows the ILS to track its activity.

History

Pre-computerization

Prior to computerization, library tasks were performed manually and independently from one another. Selectors ordered materials with ordering slips, cataloguers manually catalogued sources and indexed them with the card catalog system (in which all bibliographic data was kept on a single index card), fines were collected by local bailiffs, and users signed books out manually, indicating their name on clue cards which were then kept at the circulation desk. Early mechanization came in 1936, when the University of Texas began using a punch card system to manage library circulation. While the punch card system allowed for more efficient tracking of loans, library services were far from being integrated, and no other library task was affected by this change.

1960s: the influence of computer technologies

The next big innovation came with the advent of MARC standards in the 1960s, which coincided with the growth of computer technologies – library automation was born. From this point onwards, libraries began experimenting with computers, and, starting in the late 1960s and continuing into the 1970s, bibliographic services utilizing new online technology and the shared MARC vocabulary entered the market; these included OCLC (1967), Research Libraries Group (which has since merged with OCLC), and the Washington Library Network (which became Western Library Network and is also now part of OCLC).

1970s–1980s: the early integrated library system

Screenshot of a Dynix menu

The 1970s can be characterized by improvements in computer storage, as well as in telecommunications. As a result of these advances, ‘turnkey systems on microcomputers,’ known more commonly as integrated library management systems (ILS) finally appeared. These systems included necessary hardware and software which allowed the connection of major circulation tasks, including circulation control and overdue notices. As the technology developed, other library tasks could be accomplished through ILS as well, including acquisition, cataloguing, reservation of titles, and monitoring of serials.

1990s–2000s: the growth of the Internet

With the evolution of the Internet throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, ILSs began allowing users to more actively engage with their libraries through an OPACs and online web-based portals. Users could log into their library accounts to reserve or renew books, as well as authenticate themselves for access to library-subscribed online databases. Inevitably, during this time, the ILS market grew exponentially. By 2002, the ILS industry averaged sales of approximately US$500 million annually, compared to just US$50 million in 1982.

Mid 2000s–present: increasing costs and customer dissatisfaction

By the mid to late 2000s, ILS vendors had increased not only the number of services offered but also their prices, leading to some dissatisfaction among many smaller libraries. At the same time, open source ILS was in its early stages of testing. Some libraries began turning to such open source ILSs as Koha and Evergreen. Common reasons noted were to avoid vendor lock in, avoid license fees, and participate in software development. Freedom from vendors also allowed libraries to prioritize needs according to urgency, as opposed to what their vendor can offer. Libraries which have moved to open source ILS have found that vendors are now more likely to provide quality service in order to continue a partnership since they no longer have the power of owning the ILS software and tying down libraries to strict contracts. This has been the case with the SCLENDS consortium. Following the success of Evergreen for the Georgia PINES library consortium, the South Carolina State Library along with some local public libraries formed the SCLENDS consortium in order to share resources and to take advantage of the open source nature of the Evergreen ILS to meet their specific needs. By October 2011, just 2 years after SCLENDS began operations, 13 public library systems across 15 counties had already joined the consortium, in addition to the South Carolina State Library. Librarytechnology.org does an annual survey of over 2,400 libraries and noted in 2008 2% of those surveyed used open source ILS, in 2009 the number increased to 8%, in 2010 12%, and in 2011 11% of the libraries polled had adopted open source ILSs. The following year's survey (published in April 2013) reported an increase to 14%, stating that "open source ILS products, including Evergreen and Koha, continue to represent a significant portion of industry activity. Of the 794 contracts reported in the public and academic arena, 113, or 14 percent, were for support services for these open source systems."

2010s–present: the rise of cloud based solutions

The use of cloud-based library management systems has increased drastically since the rise of cloud technology started.

Many modern cloud-based solutions allow automated cataloging by scanning a book's ISBN.

Software criteria

Distributed software vs. web service

Library computer systems tend to fall into two categories of software:

• that purchased on a perpetual license
• that purchased as a subscription service (Software as a service).

With distributed software the customer can choose to self-install or to have the system installed by the vendor on their own hardware. The customer can be responsible for the operation and maintenance of the application and the data, or the customer can choose to be supported by the vendor with an annual maintenance contract. Some vendors charge for upgrades to the software. Customers who subscribe to a web (hosted) service upload data to the vendor's remote server through the Internet and may pay a periodic fee to access their data.

Data entry assistance based on ISBN

Many applications can reduce a major portion of manual data entry by populating data fields based upon the entered ISBN using MARC standards technology via the Internet.

Bar code scanning and printing

With most software, users can eliminate some manual entry by using a bar-code scanner. Some software is designed, or can be extended with an additional module, to integrate scanner functionality. Most software vendors provide some type of scanner integration, and some print bar-code labels.

Societal views on patents

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_views_on_patents 

 

Legal scholars, economists, activists, policymakers, industries, and trade organizations have held differing views on patents and engaged in contentious debates on the subject. Critical perspectives emerged in the nineteenth century that were especially based on the principles of free trade. Contemporary criticisms have echoed those arguments, claiming that patents block innovation and waste resources that could otherwise be used productively, and also block access to an increasingly important "commons" of enabling technologies (a phenomenon called the tragedy of the anticommons), apply a "one size fits all" model to industries with differing needs, that is especially unproductive for industries other than chemicals and pharmaceuticals and especially unproductive for the software industry. Enforcement by patent trolls of poor quality patents has led to criticism of the patent office as well as the system itself. Patents on pharmaceuticals have also been a particular focus of criticism, as the high prices they enable puts life-saving drugs out of reach of many people. Alternatives to patents have been proposed, such Joseph Stiglitz's suggestion of providing "prize money" (from a "prize fund" sponsored by the government) as a substitute for the lost profits associated with abstaining from the monopoly given by a patent.

These debates are part of a larger discourse on intellectual property protection which also reflects differing perspectives on copyright.

History

Criticism of patents reached an early peak in Victorian Britain between 1850 and 1880, in a campaign against patenting that expanded to target copyright too and, in the judgment of historian Adrian Johns, "remains to this day the strongest [campaign] ever undertaken against intellectual property", coming close to abolishing patents. Its most prominent activists - Isambard Kingdom Brunel, William Robert Grove, William Armstrong and Robert A. MacFie - were inventors and entrepreneurs, and it was also supported by radical laissez-faire economists (The Economist published anti-patent views), law scholars, scientists (who were concerned that patents were obstructing research) and manufacturers. Johns summarizes some of their main arguments as follows:

[Patents] projected an artificial idol of the single inventor, radically denigrated the role of the intellectual commons, and blocked a path to this commons for other citizens — citizens who were all, on this account, potential inventors too. [...] Patentees were the equivalent of squatters on public land — or better, of uncouth market traders who planted their barrows in the middle of the highway and barred the way of the people.

Similar debates took place during that time in other European countries such as France, Prussia, Switzerland and the Netherlands (but not in the USA).

Based on the criticism of patents as state-granted monopolies inconsistent with free trade, the Netherlands abolished patents in 1869 (having established them in 1817), and did not reintroduce them until 1912. In Switzerland, criticism of patents delayed the introduction of patent laws until 1907.

Contemporary arguments

Contemporary arguments have focused on ways that patents can slow innovation by: blocking researchers' and companies' access to basic, enabling technology, and particularly following the explosion of patent filings in the 1990s, through the creation of "patent thickets"; wasting productive time and resources fending off enforcement of low-quality patents that should not have existed, particularly by "patent trolls"; and wasting money on patent litigation. Patents on pharmaceuticals have been a particular focus of criticism, as the high prices they enable puts life-saving drugs out of reach of many people.

Blocking innovation

The most general argument against patents is that "intellectual property" in all its forms represents an effort to claim something that should not be owned, and harms society by slowing innovation and wasting resources.

Law professors Michael Heller and Rebecca Sue Eisenberg have described an ongoing tragedy of the anticommons with regard to the proliferation of patents in the field of biotechnology, wherein intellectual property rights have become so fragmented that, effectively, no one can take advantage of them as to do so would require an agreement between the owners of all of the fragments.

Some public campaigns for improving access to medicines and genetically modified food have expressed a concern for "preventing the over-reach" of intellectual property protection including patent protection, and "to retain a public balance in property rights". Some economists and scientists and law professors have raised concerns that patents retard technical progress and innovation. Others claim that patents have had no effect on research, based on surveys of scientists.

Poor patent quality and patent trolls

Patents have also been criticized for being granted on already-known inventions, with some complaining in the United States that the USPTO fails "to do a serious job of examining patents, thus allowing bad patents to slip through the system." On the other hand, some argue that because of low number of patents going into litigation, increasing quality of patents at patent prosecution stage increases overall legal costs associated with patents, and that current USPTO policy is a reasonable compromise between full trial on examination stage on one hand, and pure registration without examination, on the other hand.

Enforcement of patents – especially patents perceived as being overly broad – by patent trolls, has brought criticism of the patent system, though some commentators suggest that patent trolls are not bad for the patent system at all but instead realign market participant incentives, make patents more liquid, and clear the patent market.

Some patents granted in Russia have been denounced as pseudoscientific (for example, health-related patents using lunar phase or religious icons).

Litigation costs

According to James Bessen, the costs of patent litigation exceed their investment value in all industries except chemistry and pharmaceuticals. For example, in the software industry, litigation costs are twice the investment value. Bessen and Meurer also note that software and business model litigation accounts for a disproportionate share (almost 40 percent) of patent litigation cost, and the poor performance of the patent system negatively affects these industries.

Different industries but one law

Richard Posner noted that the most controversial feature of US patent law is that it covers all industries in the same way, but not all industries benefit from the time-limited monopoly a patent provides in order to spur innovation. He said that while the pharmaceutical industry is "poster child" for the need for a twenty-year monopoly, since costs to bring to a market are high, the time of development is often long, and the risks are high, in other industries like software the cost and risk of innovation is much lower and the cycle of innovation is quicker, and obtaining and enforcing patents and defending against patent litigation is generally a waste of resources in those industries.

Pharmaceutical patents

Some have raised ethical objections specifically with respect to pharmaceutical patents and the high prices for medication that they enable their proprietors to charge, which poor people in the developed world, and developing world, cannot afford. Critics also question the rationale that exclusive patent rights and the resulting high prices are required for pharmaceutical companies to recoup the large investments needed for research and development. One study concluded that marketing expenditures for new drugs often doubled the amount that was allocated for research and development.

In 2003, World Trade Organization (WTO) reached an agreement, which provides a developing country with options for obtaining needed medications under compulsory licensing or importation of cheaper versions of the drugs, even before patent expiration.

In 2007 the government of Brazil declared Merck's efavirenz anti-retroviral drug a "public interest" medicine, and challenged Merck to negotiate lower prices with the government or have Brazil strip the patent by issuing a compulsory license.

It is reported that Ghana, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia have similar plans to produce generic antiviral drugs. Western pharmaceutical companies initially responded with legal challenges, but some have now promised to introduce alternative pricing structures for developing countries and NGOs.

In July 2008 Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sir John Sulston called for an international biomedical treaty to clear up issues over patents.

In response to these criticisms, one review concluded that less than 5 percent of medicines on the World Health Organization's list of essential drugs are under patent. Also, the pharmaceutical industry has contributed US$2 billion for healthcare in developing countries, providing HIV/AIDS drugs at lower cost or even free of charge in certain countries, and has used differential pricing and parallel imports to provide medication to the poor. Other groups are investigating how social inclusion and equitable distribution of research and development findings can be obtained within the existing intellectual property framework, although these efforts have received less exposure.

Quoting a World Health Organization report, Trevor Jones (director of research and development at the Wellcome Foundation, as of 2006) argued in 2006 that patent monopolies do not create monopoly pricing. He argued that the companies given monopolies "set prices largely on the willingness/ability to pay, also taking into account the country, disease and regulation" instead of receiving competition from legalized generics.

Proposed alternatives to the patent system

Alternatives have been discussed to address the issue of financial incentivization to replace patents. Mostly, they are related to some form of direct or indirect government funding. One example is Joseph Stiglitz's idea of providing "prize money" (from a "prize fund" sponsored by the government) as a substitute for the lost profits associated with abstaining from the monopoly given by a patent. Another approach is to remove the issue of financing development from the private sphere altogether, and to cover the costs with direct government funding.