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Software-as-a-Service, which is also known simply as SaaS, is a cloud-based software solution which allows consumers to access an application through an internet browser, instead of downloading it on your computer.
One of the key advantages that SaaS has over traditional applications is the accessibility, compatibility, and lower upfront costs, which makes them available to more businesses.
On the other hand, a major and obvious drawback for SaaS is the requirement for constant internet connection. However, this is easily addressed nowadays with high speed phone networks, including 5G, and the availability of an offline mode which gives users some basic functionality.
Software-as-a-service applications utilize the cloud delivery model, where vendors or providers would host the application on their own servers and databases (or use a cloud provider themselves). Their application is then made available to users or customers via the internet.
Because the application is cloud-based, users are not required to maintain the software on their end. They would simply pay a subscription fee to gain access to the software and pay additional licenses if they need more users within the organization to utilize the application.
A common practice for companies is to integrate SaaS applications with other software using APIs (application programming interfaces). For instance, your team could write proprietary software and then use a SaaS vendor’s APIs to integrate tools and functionality – creating entirely new applications and digital products. This is called SaaS integration, which we’ll cover more in detail later. But first...
Most SaaS applications can be run through internet browsers, making compatibility a non-issue. This means that you can access an application regardless of what operating system you’re running on. At some instances, you can even work on an application using your smartphone, as some SaaS can run on Android or iOS.
Because SaaS applications are run in the cloud, updates are often implemented by the vendor centrally, virtually eliminating any business interruption for its users. This is a major advantage over on-premise applications, which would often require users to check the compatibility of their chosen software with their existing systems, not to mention test the updated application for security.
Thus, SaaS applications make teams faster by allowing them to potentially skip parts of the testing phase, which can often slow down the development process.
When you’re working with on-premise software, you may need business PCs and other devices that should be compatible with the said software. Apart from these, you may also need to invest on servers and/or network infrastructure as a requirement.
With the SaaS model, the initial hardware investment is minimal (and oftentimes zero), which means that businesses of any size could have access to tools through SaaS-based cloud applications.
Furthermore, SaaS applications are often scalable, which means that if you choose to add more users (or perhaps reduce them), you can just modify your billing plan. Conversely, if you work with on-premise applications, you may end up buying more hardware when increasing the number of users, which is an additional cost apart from buying more licenses.
Speaking of additional hardware investments, on-premise software often means that your organization would be required to purchase reliable backups (through either cloud or local storage) to mitigate any loss of data when your hardware crashes.
On the other hand, cloud-based SaaS applications often save your data routinely, which makes the act of saving data redundant. Additionally, users can also switch devices and continue work from one device to another almost seamlessly. They would just need to log into a single account.
With everything running on a centralized platform in the cloud, data on SaaS applications is easier to capture for analytics. Users would typically be able to access some intelligent tools which can provide some valuable insights.
Modern businesses, especially enterprises, typically have hundreds of SaaS applications running.
In order to take full advantage of your SaaS investments, you will need to integrate data from your cloud-based SaaS applications to your on-premises applications and databases.
This is called SaaS integration.
As described earlier, SaaS integration leverages on APIs to connect cloud-based SaaS applications to other cloud-based applications or on-premise software, databases, legacy systems, line-of-business (LOB) applications, or mobile apps.
Once a connection is established, the SaaS application can share data freely between the other sof.
SaaS integration is incredibly helpful for organizations who manage and use hundreds of SaaS applications, saving your IT teams a significant amount of time. It can also lead to brand new functions that could potentially improve employee and customer experience, or even create new digital products.
In order to integrate all of your SaaS applications, you would need a platform to build and deploy integrations between the cloud and the enterprise.
This platform is called an iPaaS, or an Integration Platform as a Service.
An iPaaS such as Toro Cloud’s Martini offers a low-code, API-centric platform with everything that users would need to consume, publish and manage APIs, integrate cloud-based and on-premise applications, and manage data, automate business processes, log transactions, and create reports.
It is designed to get all your applications to talk to each other: getting your CRM talking to your ERP system or line of business applications and custom applications that you’ve written in house.
As an API-centric platform, Martini allows organizations to create, deploy, and manage APIs, thus taking advantage of an API-first approach to application integration and development.
Most integration platforms in the market right now would often require ‘connectors’ or SDKs (software development kits) for each application that you would want to integrate.
Martini does away with that, as you can consume any RESTful API directly, so you won’t need to wait for your integration platform to update a connector.
If you want to learn more about Martini, as well as the entire Toro Cloud platform, visit https://www.torocloud.com.
Toro Cloud Pty Ltd is an Australian company originally incorporated in 2014 by Australian founder and CEO, David Brown, in Hong Kong. The company was relocated to Australia in September 2020 when Brown and his family returned to Sydney, Australia.
The company employs around 50 people globally, was funded with seed capital in excess of USD 1M by its founder, and has bootstrapped operations since that time.
Toro Cloud's mission is to offer our customers a dramatically more accessible way to build, manage, and deploy enterprise-class software. Toro Cloud enables an enterprise’s digital transformation with solutions that provide an API-centric approach to application development, integration, and workflow automation.
