Software as a Service vs. Service Oriented Architecture vs. Cloud Computing
I have seen a lot of confusion as to the definitions and interrelations between these three technologies. So…
Definitions:
Software as a Service: Software provides an application on-demand. There is no implied language, development methodology, or tool specifically attributed to SaaS. Some development methods may be more appropriate (such as Java and C#) since SaaS applications often provide the user interface a browser .
Service Oriented Architecture: (SOA) provides methods for systems development and integration where systems group functionality around business processes and package these as interoperable services. A SOA infrastructure allows different applications to exchange data with one another as they participate in business processes. Some organizations offer software as a service running on the organization’s private infrastructure as well.
Cloud Computing: Cloud computing is Internet (cloud) based use of computer technology where dynamically scalable resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure (the Infrastructure as a Service cloud) that supports them...virtualized. Some call this “IT Infrastructure as a Service.” Some vendors refer to the “private cloud,” which is essentially virtualized local servers. Gotta love the buzzwords.
SaaS applications may use the cloud but they are not the cloud.
SOA architectures may or may not be delivered via SaaS but they are not generically SaaS.
Cloud applications may or may not be delivered as SaaS
SEER Estimates All These Technologies
SEER, by virtue of its parameters and knowledge bases, estimates all these categories of computing. But they are not synonyms.
SEER for Software captures the effort, schedule and risk of using a Service Oriented Architecture for development and maintenance.
SEER for Software captures the effort saved by using SaaS rather than software development,while SEER for IT captures the cost or savings of using SaaS rather than organic hardware.
SEER for IT captures the effort, schedule and risk of using / supporting / operating cloud computing versus SaaS computing.
PS This blog is published with a locally installed version of WordPress software. It is not SaaS, not the cloud (running on specific server resources we pay for) and not SOA. A blog could be delivered as SaaS or via the cloud.
PS2: I curse WordPress constantly... full of problems. But if it was SOA it would just share the problems more widely. SOA does not solve software development issues. SOA does potentially provide reuse which can get applications developed faster… By the way,with all the excitement over automatic updates with SaaS, that says you can’t depend on your computer doing today what it did yesterday.
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[...] computing. It is so confusing I have seen people useing software as a service as a synonum for cloud computing. WHile SAAS may use the cloud it is not necessariely the cloud. And a cloud can be used without a [...]
Always like to see information on Cloud Computing! Looks like Australians are starting to wake up to it too with Telstra announcing a $500m spend this week on cloud computing services.
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This is good work. Perhaps the comparison can be extended to services science.
Cloud is having two different flavors
1- private cloud
2- public cloud
private cloud is nothing but a marketing term where infrastructure, platform, software all belongs to a company or a group. Most of the time it has nothing much to do with internet so it may use Service Oriented Architecture or not depending to the already developed resources.
Where as if it is a private cloud such as Amazon EC2 where the commercial services are delivered on internet. The most suitable way is to follow SOA for implementation.
Here basically the cloud is a bundle of platform, infrastructure, software (paas,iaas,saas) which is made one time and provided on internet as a service with the help of SOA (a matured Architecture), services can be used and run anywhere independent of technology and platform barrier. “SOA provides the flexibility and elasticity”.