White paper SaaS Business Enablement Services from Fujitsu

Transcription

1 White paper SaaS Business Enablement Services from Fujitsu Seamless Deployment of Existing Software Applications via the Cloud Fujitsu offers a technology platform that enables independent software vendors (ISVs) to deliver their software over the Internet as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The new offering comprises middleware and all of the services required to sell and deliver software applications online including user registration, customer and subscription management, reporting, invoicing, and payment processing. Page 1 of 18

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3 Table of Contents Table of Contents Cloud Computing an Introduction 4 Advantages for the End User 5 1 Saving costs by taking labor out of the infrastructure 5 2 Time savings for customers 5 3 Increased flexibility for customers 6 Advantages for Software Vendors 7 1 Lower cost through a centralized operating model 7 2 Frequent and incremental upgrades instead of few, complex releases 7 3 Risk Management 7 4 Conclusion 7 Introducing Fujitsu 8 Fujitsu Delivers Cloud-Excellence 10 1 Security 10 2 Quality of Service 10 3 Cost Effectiveness 10 Cloud Enablement Middleware 11 1 Business Enablement Services 11 2 SLA Enablement Services 11 3 ITIL Service Management 11 Business Enablement Services Components 12 Use Case 1 - Enabling an Application for the Cloud 13 1 Technical Staff 13 2 Identity/User Management 13 3 Customer Provisioning 13 4 Event Management 13 Use Case 2 - Defining a Cloud Offering 14 1 Business and Technical Staff 14 Use Case 3 - Becoming an End User Customer 15 1 Administrator 15 Use Case 4 - Using the SaaS Application 16 1 End User 16 Use Case 5 Payment Management 17 1 Administrator 17 Page 3 of 18

4 Cloud Computing an Introduction The expressions Cloud Computing and Software-as-a-Service represent an increasingly popular way of offering software applications and computing resources to customers today. Cloud Computing is easy to use for customers and efficient for both customers and software vendors, allowing them to provide and consume software services at lower prices. The following key attributes characterize Cloud Computing and Software-as-a-Service: Sharing: Many customers use an Internet-based application that shares common IT infrastructure. The security and privacy of each customer is ensured and even improved based on the concentration of dedicated security expertise. Pay-per-use: ISVs pay only for services actually consumed by their customers there is no upfront investment and no entry cost, such as for infrastructure. The end user of the application subscribes to and pays for the software services used. Centralized management: ISVs can upgrade and operate their applications centrally for all their customers. This generates vast efficiencies as one installation can serve thousands of customers, substantially reducing installation and maintenance costs. The transition to Cloud Computing started with specific applications delivered in the cloud. One early example was the online travel reservation system, with which thousands of travel agents became able to access centralized reservation systems using only a PC to make bookings for their clients. Today, this transition continues for mainstream applications across the IT industry. The consumer software market shows great success in the cloud model with examples such as Gmail, e-commerce stores like Amazon, auctioning sites like ebay, and search engines like Google. All are delivered from huge shared data centers, where all data and functions are centralized and controlled. Cloud architecture requires new application platforms optimized for shared and centralized operations. These new platforms are called Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), utility platforms, or simply cloud platforms. New applications built from scratch and designed to be delivered via the cloud are ideally developed and operated on these cloud platforms. However, these pure, entirely cloud-optimized platforms pose a sizable challenge to software vendors of on-premise applications who want to offer their existing applications in the cloud. This is because most of today s PaaS offerings require a complete rewrite of applications from scratch, at significant cost and time. This white paper describes an offering from Fujitsu SaaS Enablement Services aimed at simplifying the transition from on-premise applications to cloud applications. Fujitsu SaaS Enablement Services offer an incremental approach based on two major underlying principles: 1. Offer software vendors the advantages of Cloud Computing without forcing them to rewrite their existing on-premise applications, by reusing the existing code base for their cloud offering 2. Enable ISVs to continue to use their established interactive development environments (IDEs) and development tools Fujitsu is convinced that a non-disruptive transition from the on-premise application business model to the cloud-based business is appealing to many ISVs today, as they can better serve existing and new customers with a contemporary software licensing and usage model. Page 4 of 18

5 Advantages for the End User End user organizations have come to aggressively adopt Software-as-a-Service. They understand the value proposition of these cloud applications and continue to invest in them for the following reasons: 1 Saving costs by taking labor out of the infrastructure Traditional on-premise applications require a hardware infrastructure involving servers, storage, and networking for their operation. All equipment needs to be housed in secure and costly data center space. In addition, all hardware needs to be maintained, upgraded, and regularly replaced if outdated. These tasks are not necessarily within the domain expertise of customers and represent a high entry cost before even starting to address their business. In contrast, in Software-as-a-Service, all the considerations outlined above are addressed and managed by the cloud provider. Customers do not need to engage in hardware purchases, nor do they need to invest in high availability or security solutions. All infrastructure and performance requirements are defined in service level agreements (SLAs) with the cloud infrastructure provider, whose business and core expertise are the delivery of software services. Fujitsu operates its cloud infrastructure on secure, highly available virtualized infrastructures, giving it the ability to share resources across a large number of customers and users. This allows ISVs and their customers to participate in the cloud providers low-cost operating model in the form of highly affordable subscription fees. Finally, Cloud Computing represents an extremely efficient model to perform a services business. It eliminates up-front costs and establishes a convenient pay-as-you-go model based on actual expenses, not capital investments. In this model, both ISVs and customers pay per use, which means they pay for exactly what they consume and when they consume it, which can be traced and measured. Expensive up-front infrastructure and license investments turn into usage fees that are charged monthly or quarterly. 2 Time savings for customers The monetary savings outlined above apply to other resources as well. Cloud applications can be deployed by end user customers much more easily and quickly. Instead of setting up the infrastructure and installing, configuring, and tuning the software, a cloud application requires only a login, some setup, and online training to get started. Multiple business projects have shown that cloud applications can go live 85 percent more quickly and can generate a return-on-investment 73 percent faster than on-premise applications (see graph below; data represents a consolidated view of real-world projects). Page 5 of 18

6 On-Premise application ROI Pattern Cloud-application ROI Pattern These efficiencies carry through when the application is in production and apply to all maintenance and upgrade efforts, as well. Because the cloud application and all infrastructures are located off-premise, customers are not involved in maintenance or upgrades, as these are solely handled by the cloud providers in their data centers. 3 Increased flexibility for customers The Cloud Computing model offers valuable flexibility to customers: Customers can offer business applications to regionally distribute work forces without additional cost. As users merely need an Internet connection to access the cloud application, location becomes irrelevant. This is a huge advantage in our increasingly mobile workforce. Customers are not locked into huge up-front investments and rigid license terms, and are able to undertake changes every month or quarter, depending on the contractual subscription term. Page 6 of 18

7 Advantages for Software Vendors Software vendors improve their competitiveness by increased efficiencies and by opening new sales channels for a wider distribution of their software applications. Increased efficiencies result in offering software applications at a lower cost. This either increases the bottom line of the ISV through higher margins, or increases the competitiveness of cloud application providers by enabling them to pass on lower costs to their customers in the form of lower subscription fees. Broader sales channels expand the reach of software vendors and allow delivery of their applications to new regions, to address new user bases, and to enable them to define new business models that consider revenues beyond mere license revenue. 1 Lower cost through a centralized operating model Cloud applications are delivered from a centralized location where the software is installed only once. There exist no multiple software versions or different hardware platforms, operating systems, or middleware components. The cloud application is served from a single, homogeneous infrastructure that dramatically reduces the complexity of maintaining the operating environment. For example, patches and upgrades are applied once centrally instead of touching every individual customer installation. 2 Frequent and incremental upgrades instead of few, complex releases New functionality and fixes to cloud applications can be rolled out on a more frequent basis, eliminating issues related to the complexity of major releases. Upgrades and patches that reach the customer faster result in lowered support overhead, hence reducing maintenance cost. Also, the ability for software vendors to immediately address end customer problems results in better customer service, which again directly increases competitiveness in the marketplace. 3 Risk Management Cloud Computing represents a disruptive technology, which quickly gains momentum in the market. Software vendors that do not transition fast enough run the risk of weakening their competitive advantage and exposing themselves to customer loss. In the future, software applications will be compared and evaluated based on parameters that are unreachable for on-premise delivery. 4 Conclusion The entire Cloud Computing value chain benefits from a more efficient operating model for delivering IT services. Page 7 of 18

8 Introducing Fujitsu Fujitsu is a leading provider of IT-based business solutions and one of the biggest IT companies in the world. With approximately 175,000 employees supporting customers in 70 countries, Fujitsu combines its worldwide workforce with expertise in hardware, software, and professional services to deliver highly reliable and secure business IT solutions. The company's Japanese roots penetrate the entire Fujitsu organization with a distinct quality, security, and service-oriented culture which is the very core of a successful cloud business. Since its inception, Fujitsu has served enterprise customers, providing high quality, extremely high availability, and undisputable security against enterprise - standard service level agreements. Due to its significant history in infrastructure, data centers, middleware, and professional services, Fujitsu is an ambitious cloud player. Fujitsu is one of the few global IT powerhouses with the ability to offer an end-to-end cloud solution including hardware, software, data centers, and all related professional services. Fujitsu technology for mission-critical Cloud Enablement Services Fujitsu SaaS Business Enablement Services are based on proven technology skills that have been developed for decades serving on-premise enterprise projects. They include: System infrastructure and data centers Fujitsu is a leading hardware infrastructure provider, operating top-level data centers in various countries around the world. The Fujitsu data center operations and system Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) form the infrastructure element of Fujitsu SaaS Business Enablement Services. Middleware Top IT analysts recognize Fujitsu as a leading software provider of application middleware and integration technology. For example, the Interstage Application Server is the market-leading application server technology product in Japan, having been deployed in numerous enterprise projects at Japanese enterprises and government organizations. In addition, the Interstage Application Server has been deployed in numerous sites in Europe and in the American market for large, mission-critical projects. Fujitsu leverages these technologies and capabilities to deliver comprehensive SaaS Business Enablement Services that include account and subscription management, billing and payment services, reporting, and online-product definition and provisioning. SaaS Business Enablement Services include Business Enablement Services (BES), SLA Enablement Services (SES) and ITIL Service Management (ISM), as depicted in the graphic on the next page. Page 8 of 18

9 Professional Services Fujitsu offers a portfolio of professional services for ISVs and their customers. The Fujitsu service business was created with the company s inception over 75 years ago in Japan. Since then, the services business has gone global, establishing a strong presence worldwide over the past three decades. Fujitsu service offerings range from infrastructure, application, and data center management to hosting and full business process outsourcing. Additionally, Fujitsu offers traditional system integration as well as implementation services and technical support. All professional services are rendered according to specific customer needs in enterprise projects. Page 9 of 18

10 Fujitsu Delivers Cloud-Excellence With its SaaS Enablement Services, Fujitsu delivers a superior platform for Cloud Computing, continuing its current reputation in the enterprise IT market for leading innovation and solutions. 1 Security Cloud Computing implies that applications and data will not reside on-premise in a customer s own data center. IT infrastructure and applications are hosted and run in a cloud provider s data center. This frequently raises security concerns. Fujitsu addresses these concerns through organizational and technical measures that establish security on the highest industry levels. For example, years of experience as a hosting provider equip Fujitsu with the most secure data centers throughout the world. Fujitsu provides even higher security standards than many customers attempt to establish by themselves. Fujitsu is known for delivering hosted services that only allow customers authorized users on various granular levels to access their applications. Customer data is secured through two-factor authentication, strong encryption algorithms, and tamper-proof audit trails. As cloud technology is still at an early stage, some platform vendors try to gather market share by providing easy-to-use development environments that are appealing to software application vendors. They offer attractive tools to quickly build new applications that are cloud-enabled. The downside of this approach is twofold: 1. It doesn t offer anything to vendors that have existing applications, so vendors are required to rewrite their entire application. 2. The applications that are built on such platforms are locked into these proprietary platforms. SaaS Business Enablement Services from Fujitsu are compatible with existing applications and technologies and fully support open standards. This means that software vendors can keep all existing applications and continue to use all preferred and familiar development environments ( e.g., Eclipse or Microsoft Studio ), while transitioning their applications to the cloud. This does not require software vendors to rewrite applications and prevents lock-in to proprietary technology. 2 Quality of Service Fujitsu delivers excellent quality in all aspects of its SaaS Business Enablement Services and flexible arrangements for varying service-levels. 3 Cost Effectiveness Cost effectiveness is one of the main advantages of cloud computing. Fujitsu delivers this advantage by virtualizing hardware and software infrastructures across applications and by providing various multi-tenancy alternatives. SaaS Business Enablement Services from Fujitsu are consumed through a pay-per-use model, in which ISVs only pay for services actually used. Likewise, their customers will equally benefit from this model. Cloud Computing enabled by Fujitsu guarantees: No upfront financial commitment No overpayments Highly flexible pricing Reliable quality of service The resulting cost benefits are shared across ISVs and their customers. Page 10 of 18

11 Cloud Enablement Middleware Cloud Enablement Middleware represents the software service offering of the Fujitsu cloud platform. It is composed of three technologies that are necessary for an application platform. 1 Business Enablement Services Business Enablement Services (BES) migrate existing on-premise software applications to a fully functional and commercial online application. BES s open standard interfaces give independent software vendors the advantage of continuing to use their existing development environments while leveraging an open platform to offer their applications in the cloud. In addition, BES extends software services distribution beyond license sales. With BES, software vendors can leverage multiple sales channels such as online marketplaces, value-added resellers, systems integrators, and direct sales to aim for maximized reach and revenue. BES simplifies the transition from on-premise to cloud software by reducing technical entry barriers. And it provides ready-to-use business services necessary to generate revenue with cloud applications such as account management, subscription management, provisioning, bill generation, payment collection, report viewing, and more. 2 SLA Enablement Services Service level agreement Enablement Services (SES) provide functionality allowing cloud application providers to set up different service levels to differentiate their online-offerings. With SES, cloud providers can offer their customers different subscription alternatives and a variety of different service-level agreement definitions. This enables software vendors to serve markets with different service requirements and give customers the option to balance their actual service needs with the associated cost of more rigorous SLA requirements. SES are tightly integrated with BES subscription management, reporting, and billing capabilities. 3 ITIL Service Management ITIL service management (ISM) provides ITIL-compliant service management specifically for applications. ISM ensures customer service efficiencies by offering recording and tracing of service requests and enables application providers to resolve their service issues quickly and reliably. ISM is integrated with SES and BES for a cohesive online operation across business, service level agreements, and service management. Page 11 of 18

12 Business Enablement Services Components This chapter introduces all BES components and illustrates their role in transitioning on-premise applications to the cloud and eventually generating business online. The components of BES are shown in the following picture. These components are described below, along with five use cases. The following five scenarios show how BES are deployed and used. These use cases affect two main stakeholders, ISVs and end user customers. The scenarios can be structured along three main phases: 1. Software vendors transition their applications to the cloud by integrating the on-premise application with BES. This is the basic technical setup and is described through two use cases: - Use Case 1 Enabling an application for the cloud - Use Case 2 Defining a cloud offering 2. End user customers using an ISV s cloud application. This can only happen after phase 1, above, is accomplished. It describes how end users register and work with cloud applications. This phase is covered by two use cases: - Use Case 3 Becoming an end user customer - Use Case 4 Using the cloud application 3. The last use case in this chapter Use Case 5 - Payments and reporting affects both software vendors and end users. It also describes how billing and reporting are achieved with BES. Page 12 of 18

13 Use Case 1 - Enabling an Application for the Cloud 1 Technical Staff SaaS-enablement of an application with BES is done through the technical staff of the software vendor and can be viewed as integration between the on-premise application and BES through technical interfaces. Fujitsu BES require three main integration tasks described below. BES documentation provides a more detailed and technical description of these integration tasks. 2 Identity/User Management User management of the on-premise application is linked with Identity Management of BES. This enables end users to register users of their subscribed cloud applications. BES enable end user access control of the cloud application. 3 Customer Provisioning Each software application must offer the same Web Service interface to BES. This interface consists of a set of functions, including the mechanisms to establish a new instance of the application by BES when a customer subscribes online. A subscription represents a new tenant for the application. Typically, new tenants or customers need a separate data container, independent of all other tenants of the application. The data also needs to be protected to provide highest possible security and privacy. Other functions of provisioning deal with starting and stopping the application and preparing the cloud application to deal with events. BES manage the subscriptions and controls the provisioning for the new tenants, while the cloud application actually executes the provisioning. 4 Event Management Events are the basis for accounting and charging end-customers. BES generate invoices and collect money on behalf of the software vendor based on the events that are passed between the cloud application and BES. Events are defined in BES as part of an application s Technical and Marketing Product Definitions and are associated with a price. This enables BES to capture appropriate activities to bill customers. The cloud application issues such events each time a user executes a billable action such as booking a transaction. BES record the events and use them for billing. Page 13 of 18

14 Use Case 2 - Defining a Cloud Offering 1 Business and Technical Staff The new SaaS software application is linked with BES through the Technical Product Definition. It is a set of metadata that software vendors use to register their applications in BES. For example, they specify the Internet address for the SaaS application and a product description in multiple languages, including license conditions. Defining the SaaS offering is mandatory when the software vendor starts using BES, and it is available at any time after the initial set up to adjust the SaaS product definition to changing market needs. The marketing product definition of BES enables product managers to specify how they want to market their online software products to various customer segments. There can be multiple marketing product definitions for one Technical Product Definition. The differentiating feature scopes, pricings and usage terms across multiple marketing product definitions are mapped and guaranteed to the underlying on-premise application through BES. For example, a marketing manager decides to offer the SaaS application in three different subscription alternatives: 1. Free trial version for four weeks with limited features 2. Standard Edition 3. Enterprise Edition For both the Standard Edition and the Enterprise Edition, there are two pricing alternatives one based on named users per month and another based on minutes of overall usage per month. Additionally, the software vendor offers two service levels, one inexpensive for casual, non power-users and another more expensive service level for power users. Service levels might include different guarantees for uptime and different support hours. Product bundles can be set up via market product definition and represent the SaaS application externally to the market. The various product, price, and service level alternatives are exposed to the end customer through subscription management, which can be viewed as the online shop that offers the application in all its facets. BES support ISV-specific website themes, which allow software vendors to design their e-commerce storefront or marketplaces according to their corporate identity. BES provides both marketing and technical product definitions. This simplifies set-up since no programming is involved. The previous two use cases described what software vendors are required to do to offer their on-premise application online. Once the SaaS application is available externally, end users are able to sign up for it. Page 14 of 18

15 Use Case 3 - Becoming an End User Customer 1 Administrator This scenario describes how new customers work with the online offering. Initially, end users register themselves through the BES portal, setting up a user account capturing information such as company name, address, contact data, and all payment related details. The BES portal gives end users access to their account and subscription information. In addition, the portal provides usage reports and all information related to billing and payments. Details about billing and payment are covered in Use Case 5 below. Following the initial set-up of the customer account, all users of that organization who are identified to work with any of the SaaS applications are registered. Once an account is created, the customer administrator can subscribe to available applications. The Subscription Management component of BES lists all available marketing products, comparable to an online shop. The customer administrator selects the appropriate service package (edition, named user pricing, low service level), agrees with the terms and conditions, associates the users who are entitled to use the application and completes the subscription. After concluding the subscription process, BES triggers the provisioning of the application in the cloud. BES create a URL exclusively for new subscriptions and notifies any associated subscriber. Additionally, subscription management handles other tasks such as upgrading, downgrading, and terminating subscriptions or migrating existing subscriptions to other product packages. Following account setup, the customer administrator can register actual end users of the SaaS application. BES provide this functionality through integrated identity management, which is accessed through the portal and prompts the underlying application to create new users for the application. Page 15 of 18

16 Use Case 4 - Using the SaaS Application 1 End User After the customer subscribes all its users, the application is ready for use through the URL previously provided by BES. When logging in via this URL, user credentials are validated by BES identity management. While end users are using the application, configured events record all necessary activities, which are transmitted through event management to BES, capturing all billing-related information. Page 16 of 18

17 Use Case 5 Payment Management 1 Administrator Basic payment information such as payment method is accessed in account management as entered by the customer administrator during account setup. The billing and payment collection components in BES cover the entire payment process from accounting, billing records, and invoicing end users to collecting money. Money collection is guaranteed by a leading payment service provider and international credit card acquirers. Relevant billing information comes from two sources within BES: Subscription Management determining subscription or user based charges The cloud application determining usage-based charges through billing events Once the amount per billing period is determined, a bill is automatically generated, compliant with all local accounting and tax regulations. The bill is automatically sent to the end customer and the payment is collected via credit card or bank account transfer. The automated billing process is entirely transparent to end users through available reporting. BES allow ISVs to offer self-service reporting to their end customers on all billing events and more. The self-service model is prevalent throughout BES, making SaaS applications more efficient for any ISV than traditional on-premise delivery. BES facilitate reporting for the software vendor to monitor key performance indicators of their application, such as number of users, usage information like total time logged in, sales promotion tracking, monetary evaluations and adherence to service level agreements (i.e., performance or response to service requests. Similarly, software vendors business staff can access reports that summarize the customer usage status and other information. BES offer online reports and the ability to extract given data in CSV or XML. SaaS Enablement Services from Fujitsu bring together a world class data center practice in the form of Infrastructure-as-a-Service, which hosts leading SaaS Enablement Middleware delivered by professional services excellence with more than 70 years of industry experience. This enables Fujitsu to efficiently move any software vendor s application to the cloud. BES from Fujitsu offer transitioning paths for existing, on-premise applications to the cloud without the need to rewrite the software. It provides a low-cost, low-risk approach for software vendors to offer their software online. At its core, Fujitsu BES pursue the objective of keeping existing applications development environments and simplifying the transition into the new cloud paradigm for software vendors to open new sales channels. Page 17 of 18

18 Summary The economic benefits of the new Cloud Computing era will make its adoption among software providers inevitable. The market is past the hype-stage and increasing adoption rates across any industry and enterprises of various sizes confirm this trend. Software vendors are able to expand their distribution channels and differentiate their sales models. Additionally, the cloud model allows software vendors to operate more efficiently, enabling them to offer their software services for lower prices while still achieving higher margins. Lower prices attract end customers who turn to cloud applications in place of their previously deployed on-premise solutions. The core of this innovative software delivery is purely achieved through technological progress witnessed by virtualization of infrastructure, Internet connectivity and service-oriented, multi-tenant software architectures. ABOUT FUJITSU Fujitsu is a business IT powerhouse, operating globally and one of the few unified IT companies able to offer hardware, software, and services to large enterprises. Cloud Computing represents the potential for a unified hardware and software services offering, including delivery through professional services. Fujitsu is in the unique position to dominate this era of Cloud Computing as it applies all experience the company has gathered throughout the years in their cloud offerings. Contact FUJITSU AMERICA, INC East Arques Avenue Sunnyvale, CA 94085, U.S.A. (888) Fujitsu and the Fujitsu logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fujitsu Limited in the United States and other countries. Microsoft and Visual Studio are trademarks or registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. ITIL is a registered trademark of the Cabinet Office (part of HM Government), Eclipse is a trademark of The Eclipse Foundation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners. Product description data represents Fujitsu design objectives and is provided for comparative purposes; actual results may vary based on a variety of factors. Specifications are subject to change without notice. Copyright 2011 Fujitsu America, Inc. All rights reserved. FPC /11. FCI_ Page 18 of 18