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This article is to share with you about how to manage too many Saas applications, the editor thinks it is very practical, so I share it with you to learn. I hope you can get something after reading this article.

What is Software as a Service (SaaS)?

SaaS is a cloud-based software solution in which software vendors deliver applications to users over the Internet. SaaS companies usually provide access to their software through websites or applications. Other widely used cloud computing solutions include platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

SaaS, PaaS and IaaS

All three models allow users to take advantage of powerful business technology solutions without having to invest in internal hardware in advance, greatly reducing costs.

SaaS model: SaaS vendors use the Internet to deliver software to end users. Use is usually based on subscription, monthly or annual fees. SaaS users usually do not need expensive or lengthy upgrades to the solution. Because they are cloud-based, upgrades are managed by the solution provider. The usability offered by SaaS does not confuse customers with the details.

PaaS model: PaaS provides a platform for companies to create applications, perform web development, or manage other programming projects.

IaaS model: similarly, the infrastructure as a service provider allows users to abandon physical servers or data centers. With IaaS, vendors manage the infrastructure, while clients manage their software and applications. Like SaaS and PaaS, IaaS users only need to pay the amount they need and can expand or reduce their needs at any time.

Advantages and benefits of SaaS

Multi-tenant architecture: by design, SaaS companies such as Salesforce are built to serve a large number of users (tenants) on their servers, which allows customers to expand their use according to the needs of their company. Whether they are hiring more people to carry out large-scale sales promotion, or downsizing to reduce administrative costs, SaaS can increase or decrease as needed.

Affordable entry fees: there is no dedicated hardware to purchase, lease, or set up except for the systems the company already uses, and SaaS customers do not need to invest in additional infrastructure. SaaS also saves customers labor costs because there is no need for on-site installation, updates, or troubleshooting.

Payment at any time: easy to expand and customize to meet the unique needs of your business, which means SaaS can meet your budget support. Customers can avoid buying unwanted hardware and high installation costs, as well as reducing downtime required to upgrade to the SaaS platform or gain new features. Depending on your business and budget requirements, you can change the services you need and the number of users you need to access.

Easy to customize and integrate: many SaaS applications and components are designed to integrate perfectly with products from the same vendor or from other vendors. A strong platform with seamless integration is the key to driving business growth.

The definition of SaaS is incomplete without explaining how this solution fits into the other two major cloud-based delivery models (PaaS and IaaS). All three approaches allow users to take advantage of powerful business technology solutions without having to invest in internal hardware in advance, thus greatly reducing costs.

Based on the advantages of SaaS, enterprises are seeing a significant increase in the adoption of SaaS within their organizations. However, technicians need to organize and address issues related to license management, redundancy, governance, and compliance / compliance.

5 steps to prevent IT expansion due to dispersed SaaS use

In today's business environment, agility is very popular. As a result, enterprises are now actively using the efficiency of technology to drive their processes. Why not? Digital tools make future-oriented companies perform better than backward ones. According to a Harvard study, digital leaders' three-year average gross profit margin is 55%, while the laggard's gross profit margin is only 37%.

The decision on whether to make a digital transition has become meaningless. Instead, organizations are now often faced with the choice of incremental or disruptive changes as part of their digital transformation.

Interestingly, the emergence of Software as a Service (SaaS) as a distribution model for applications enables companies to quickly adopt new tools. Because the cost of ordering licenses is relatively low, even small businesses with only a few people can simply choose to join these services.

However, as it becomes easier to obtain technical tools, there are also problems of expansion and out of control within the enterprise. On average, enterprises can use thousands of cloud services across a variety of business functions, many of which may be underutilized or even unnecessary. If left unchecked, the surge in SaaS usage can lead to a variety of other problems, such as integration challenges, security risks, and redundant expenses.

As teams are authorized to purchase their own tools to meet their specific needs, technology leaders may begin to wonder if it is time to play a more passive role in software management.

However, the risks associated with SaaS stack ballooning mean that your management helps ensure that your company makes the right technology choices. You must also ensure that these cloud-based applications work well with local IT and existing enterprise software.

To prevent IT from inflating due to scattered use of SaaS, perform the following five steps.

1. Confirm

Before trying to manage SaaS usage and change the status quo, it is important to have a clear understanding of SaaS usage in your organization. You should create a comprehensive and up-to-date list of all subscriptions and users active in the enterprise. Pay attention to key details, including application name, registered user, access rights, subscription fee and duration, and legal and compliance information. This information is critical to developing strategies on how to simplify and manage these SaaS applications.

If your entire company uses only one credit card to pay for subscription services, it will be difficult to determine which payments are for which software products, let alone track which departments need which applications. However, using the virtual company credit card service tool, you can easily break down and itemize all of this data.

At the same time, there are tools that can help IT administrators quickly perform periodic audits. By integrating with your company's Web browser and single sign-on provider, you can track SaaS usage on your network. The solution can also monitor employee activity so that the SaaS application is automatically recorded for you to view when the user logs in.

Through the audit, you will be able to review all the applications in use and map out the various technology-driven features required by specific departments and teams.

two。 Simplify

After the audit, one of the ways you can easily solve the ballooning problem is to simplify the choice of SaaS applications that make up your IT ecosystem. This list should help you identify potential redundant features and services.

For example, a marketing team can use a variety of tools with a cross-set of features. Several marketing cloud tools such as those provided by Salesforce may support landing page building and messaging personalization. However, the team may still subscribe to these to cover a feature that others lack.

By understanding these overlaps and the advantages of each tool, you can eliminate redundant subscriptions and those that do not fit your process. Depending on your situation, only the services with the best performance are retained.

3. Integration

One of the negative effects of too many SaaS applications is that rampant SaaS adoption may also exacerbate the island effect among teams within the organization, resulting in a lack of collaboration. If each team uses its own toolset, it may hinder information and workflow. To overcome this problem, it is necessary to integrate these applications and make them share data seamlessly. In this way, work can easily move from one business area to the next, while ensuring the integrity of the information.

Integration also helps with analytics and business intelligence. Merging data can produce more accurate insights. This is not feasible if the information of an SaaS application cannot be referenced by other data sources.

One way you can easily learn about data in various applications is to use business dashboards, such as Salesforce sales cloud reports and dashboard functions. These services support the extraction of up-to-date data from most major SaaS tools to help you generate accurate snapshots of your business at any time, which you can easily share with stakeholders throughout your company.

4. Monitor

SaaS services can relieve some of the maintenance burden on the IT team. For example, software updates are usually deployed automatically, unlike traditional software, where IT teams have to roll out patches to endpoints themselves. But that doesn't mean these applications can go unmonitored. You should still be at the forefront of development to ensure that these applications do not cause problems for your ecosystem.

Many SaaS applications use JavaScript frameworks and libraries as part of their technology stack. The package manager NPM found in its audit that 51% of projects using the JavaScript library contained at least one vulnerability. Developers often need to apply the necessary patches to their applications. However, the IT team can do due diligence and verify that the application they are using contains these insecure libraries.

In addition, note who can access these SaaS applications. Without monitoring, some employees may still be able to retain access to your data through their own SaaS subscriptions long after leaving the company. Features such as single sign-on with company-provided permissions can help you assign and revoke access rights in a timely manner. You can also control and minimize costs by monitoring the number and time of subscriptions to SaaS services.

5. Safety

Network attack is an urgent concern of all enterprises today. Using cloud solutions such as those provided by Salesforce can provide more protection for data security based on its awareness, technical means, equipment, talent and other advantages, but the control of data by the enterprise itself is still worrying.

A series of data protection systems should be established within the enterprise, such as not allowing junior staff to be authorized at the access administrator or owner level. Establish an agreement that allows you to review and review new users and tools. Policies regarding employees' use of SaaS services must be clearly outlined and users held accountable.

Eliminate the expansion of the tissue

Keep in mind that you still need to strike a balance between empowering employees to be agile and controlling the infrastructure. You don't want to limit the possible ways in which employees can use new SaaS tools to benefit your business. In addition, many of these SaaS products have now become industry standard tools for some business processes.

However, given the risks associated with current technology adoption, it is still important to control SaaS adoption. An inflated technology stack will eventually become difficult to handle and manage. Simplifying the use of SaaS should be a top priority. Reliable strategies, careful implementation, and the choice of more comprehensive products should enable you to enjoy the benefits of SaaS and overcome potential problems.

The above is how to manage too many Saas applications, and the editor believes that there are some knowledge points that we may see or use in our daily work. I hope you can learn more from this article. For more details, please follow the industry information channel.

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