“To SaaS or not to SaaS?” IT market analysts agree that SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) is the future of software delivery. SaaS and in general cloud-enabled applications had been gaining momentum well before the pandemic hit, and with Covid-19 as the ultimate accelerator, they have been experiencing unparalleled growth over the last few years. SaaS has played critical roles in helping companies react to the crisis, handle the challenges of lockdowns and remote working ensuring accessibility, collaboration and business continuity in times of disruption.
Features such as flexibility, scalability and affordability have made SaaS extremely popular among businesses of all kinds and, unsurprisingly, SaaS is today one of the fastest growing segments in the IT industry.
Given our recent customer communication around end of life of SAP Signavio on-premises version, I thought it might be useful to provide a reminder of the benefits of SaaS vs on-premises.
What is SaaS and how it differs from on-premises
But let’s define what SaaS is. Sometimes referred as “on-demand software” and part of the cloud computing stack, SaaS is a licensing and delivery model in which the application is licensed on a subscription basis and hosted at an external IT service provider. Differently from on-premises models, where customers pay a licence fee to own the product, with SaaS, organizations quite simply “rent” the software. They pay a subscription (typically a monthly one) to access an application which is hosted remotely and maintained by the service provider or vendor. With SaaS, the software is accessible over the web, anytime of day and night, from any location and from any device.
“Accessibility, collaboration and flexibility have always been at the heart of our product strategy.” noted Stefan Krumnow, SVP Engineering at SAP Signavio. “We were the first in the market to offer a web-based tool for modelling business processes and today, the successor of this application – our - sits at the centre of a comprehensive business process transformation suite which is completely SaaS-based.”
“SaaS deployments help organizations focus more on the business and less on application delivery and with modern companies looking for ever higher flexibility and resiliency, today SaaS makes more sense than ever”, added Krumnow.
Data security, important as it should be
As SaaS applications carry a vast amount of sensitive information and are accessed by large communities of scattered users, some organizations might still struggle in adopting SaaS instead of on-premises models and express concerns about data security and privacy. Actually, over the years, SaaS has evolved to be safer than most on-premises solutions and even the most regulated and monitored sectors such as banking, today rely on SaaS to store their data.
“Data is the lifeblood of any organization and at SAP Signavio we take data security seriously as it needs to be ” added Krumnow. “SAP Signavio products are kept constantly at an up-to-date security level with critical security updates installed in less than 24 hours after release so that there are no vulnerabilities. Our software architecture follows the so-called multi-tenant concept according to which, the customer gets access to a workspace – tenant - that is completely separated from all other customers’ workspaces ensuring data privacy and confidentiality.”
“Importantly , SAP Signavio also applies a certified information security management system (ISMS) and is audited annually by the certification authority.”
The 5 benefits of using SaaS
Today SaaS is ubiquitous, because it offers many advantages over traditional on-premises software delivery models, including:
- Faster time to deploy and time to benefit: Since the software application is already installed and configured, users would only need to “go online” and start using it.
- Use from anywhere and on mobile devices: The use of the software is no longer necessarily tied to a workstation. With their login data, users can run the application while on the move or from other systems. This also facilitates the new “working from home” culture.
- Maintenance is shifted from the customer to the vendor: IT teams in particular no longer have to worry about software installations, licenses, updates or maintenance, but can focus their resources on other tasks and business priorities.
- High security standards for all users: Decentralized storage of all data on a cloud server means that local hardware and software problems are less likely to lead to data loss. Smaller companies enjoy the same security standards that apply to larger companies.
- New features and updates are implemented and integrated much faster: Because the software runs on the vendor side, it is also controlled directly by the vendor. The customer always has real-time access to the latest
This blog has summarized as a quick reference, the differences between on-premises and SaaS of SAP Signavio solutions and outlines 5 benefits of SaaS.
If you want to learn more about SAP Signavio solutions, check out some useful materials on
SAP Signavio Community Additionally, you can comment and ask further questions
here. I welcome suggestions of other topics that would help with helping you with your journey from on-premises to SaaS and cloud.
