You’ve made the decision: the overall ease and economics of implementing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) appeal to you, and you have selected an application that delivers what you need for your business. The last hurdle is the service component itself — making sure that critical factors like security, speed, and reliability that will affect your users’ experience meet your standards.
S P R I N G C M R E F E R E N C E S E R I E S
IN PURSUIT OF P.R.A.I.S.E:
DELIVERING ON THE SERVICE PROPOSITION
What to Look For When Considering On-Demand Applications
Christine Mason, CEOSpringCM
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Best Practices in Operations, Performance and Security
Table of Contents
Seeking P.R.A.I.S.E: Best Practices in SaaS Operations 2
Performance: Measurement, metrics and monitoring 3
Reliability: Components that ensure optimal user experience 5
Availability: Delivering on the "five nines" 6
Information Stewardship: Information protection short and long term 7
Scalability: Ensuring a sound capacity management program 9
Enterprise Dependability: Evidence to support confidence in business growth 11
References 12
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Seeking P.R.A.I.S.E: Best Practices in SaaS Operations
You've made the decision: the overall ease and economics of implementing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) appeal to you, and you have selected an application that delivers what you need for your business.
The last hurdle is the service component itself - making sure that critical factors like security, speed, and reliability that will affect your users' experience meet your standards. When you install or deploy software internally, your own Information Technology team handles operational items like these. With SaaS, where you are outsourcing opera-tional processes, you need to make sure your vendor has the right approach for providing the service you deserve.
The good news: SaaS solutions are for the most part built to deliver excellent security and performance levels: mak-ing applications run well from a central, secure point is the core business of a SaaS provider. Large investments to ensure service levels can be shared across many customers, and often create better operational results than sys-tems deployed in house. Nonetheless, not all SaaS providers are created equal.
What makes a good SaaS partner? Built for better security and performance Culture of service, good processes and practices
Delivering on a Service Proposition
A service proposition begins with intention: being tuned into the needs of the customer. Software compa-nies that started as "product" companies - where you build, package and ship a product - have a different perspective, and have aligned their operations differently. Being a "service" provider involves more than hosting applications. Before When a company combines a you get to best practices, metrics and measurements in operations, powerful service culture with good ask yourself: Does the company seem to have a service mentality? processes and practices, you have Do they see themselves as stewards of your information or just op- found your SaaS partner.erators of infrastructure? How can you tell?
Look at the language the company uses about service, and consider how well it listens to your needs and under-stands the value you seek to create in your environment. Do they offer live sales and support people to assist with questions? How earnestly and directly are issues handled? Does the company offer service level commitments and publish its performance statistics for customers to see? With that in mind, here are some guidelines that a thoughtful consumer can follow when verifying a potential solution's operational effectiveness. We call it seeking "P.R.A.I.S.E."
Performance: Measurement, metrics and monitoring that raise the bar Reliability: Problem submission, determination, resolution and tracking Availability: Service commitments for when you need it most Information Stewardship: Obligation to protect your information now and in for the future Scalability: Capacit... [download for more]
