SAAS Applications anyone?

[jazzsyncopation]

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

[Ashbeeee]

It's your lucky day. I'm an IT specialist who has woken up with bad period pains and using Mn to distract me!!

Guessing you want to know what it means as opposed to how to use a particular package?

Software as a service (Saas) It's basically 'pay as you go' for software applications. Also known as software 'in the cloud'.

In the old days you used to buy software and run it on a server or other computer. This meant that you had to pay up front for the software package (known as buying a licence) install it, configure it, and sometimes buy the kit for it to,run on as well. Every time the software got updated to a new version you would have to 'upgrade' , usually paying more money for a later version. It could be painful and expensive, and sometimes meant having to buy newer high performance kit for it to run on. It involved a lot of capital expenditure (capex) - money up front which IT departments and to plan, estimate and budget for. Then fight the CFO to get money for! Examples include SAP.

In Saas the software comes with the 'full stack' ie it runs 'in the cloud' on kit /servers owned by the Saas company. So this means that you don't need to buy and own big heavy duty kit to run it on. All you need is an Internet connection to access it. Another benefit is that you don't ever need to pay to upgrade the version you use as the SaaS people automatically give you the latest version (mostly anyway). In most Saas (as with most cloud) you pay for it as you use it and can switch it off at any time. Prices tend to be much lower per head than trad software. It's become very popular for these reasons, and also because it is classed as 'operating expenditure(opex) in accounting terms, which is beneficial to the way company accounts work (there is no asset purchase or ownership so no depreciation applies). Disadvantages include inflexibility ( you don't own it so can't always do as much configuration to shape it to your exact needs). Example Salesforce.com

Other terms you may come accross related to this are
Iaas - infrastructure as a service (eg aws the Amazon cloud) where you pay as you go to use someone else's processing power and/or storage

Paas - platform as a service . Again borrowing someone else's kit but they also manage it for you.

Hope this helps. If not feel free to ask more as I'll be online periodically tomorrow.

[Ashbeeee]

Periodically. See what I did there?

[2rebecca]

I suspect she was taking about the Students Award Service Scotland but abbreviations in titles are rarely a good idea

[2rebecca]

Student award agency even. If you live in Scotland then it's an obvious acronym in higher ed but if you're in England it isn't.
We're in Scotland but the tuition fees just came through from SAAS after my son was accepted via Ucas and we didn't apply for anything else so can't help

[CremeBrulee]

I immediately thought 'software as a service' too

[mayaknew]

What are you struggling with Op ? I've applied to saas loads of times I may be able to help

[Ashbeeee]

Well now everyone knows what the other saas is!

[2rebecca]

It was a very thorough answer.

[jazzsyncopation]

just came back on....am really touched at everyones kind offers of help!!!!!!!!think it's all done now

[RawCoconutMacaroon]

The buggerations! The title of this thread reminded me that we have completely forgotten to sit down with DS and do his SAAS forms.

We've been too focused on the exam period and then off on holiday.

[jazzsyncopation]

glad you've remembered now Raw!!!
all the best x

[dementedma]

Love the title and the first response. I assume we are talking student funding in Scotland?????

[MagicalHamSandwich]

Yup, Software as a Service here to. I Was just about to elaborate on some of the points in Ashbeeee's post.

Oh, those pesky IT folk!