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The SPI Model Explained

Today we see and hear of ‘everything as a service’ and the majority of major technology companies have or will be moving to this model. For those that haven’t moved to this model yet they will need guidance on how to get the best from these models.

The request for this publication comes nicely after my previous article as it follows suit and is embedded in Cloud Computing Services as a whole.

What does “aaS” mean?

Put simply this is short hand for: as a Service. For example, think about when you order food at your favourite restaurant. It’s essentially food being served to you based on what you ordered on the menu.

If we relate the above example back to the world of cloud computing, imagine the below offerings as a menu and you pick and choose what you require.

From a cloud computing perspective there are three main “as a Service” offerings:

1. Software as a Service (SaaS)
2. Platform as a Service (PaaS)
3. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Software as a Service:

When you access your Netflix account and you watch a movie, this is Software as a Service.

At the point of when you subscribe to Netflix you are paying for a license to use the software and you consume it as and when you please. Netflix are responsible for hosting, securing the service, any maintenance or upgrades required and to ensure it is constantly available for you to consume.

Now let’s look at this from a Cloud Computing Services standpoint. The best example here is Microsoft’s Office 365. Microsoft host Office 365 in numerous data centres globally and are responsible for ensuring the software is available to its licensed users.

You purchase an Office 365 license per user which in turn means Microsoft will provision, secure, maintain and upgrade the Office 365 service for you.

The advantages to SaaS include:

• Pay as you go model — Allowing you to only pay for what you use. You spin up and spin down the software licenses as necessary.
• Work from Anywhere — As most SaaS applications are Web Browser based you can log in from anywhere across the globe with an internet connection — Office 365 also provides an offline version to give you the ability to work offline.
• Vendor Responsibility — The vendor is responsible for the uptime, security and upgrades of the platform — removing workloads such as managing Microsoft Exchange servers away from your IT Team.
• Increased agility in terms of time to deploy the SaaS applications — Remember when you used to have to install software on each user’s computer such as the Office suite? Now users can consume the application with a license and an internet browser.

The main disadvantages to SaaS are:

• Compliance — Depending on the data there maybe be regulations/laws as to where that data can reside. The SaaS providers may only hold data in a country that does not comply with the regulators standards — note: Microsoft are constantly expanding their Data Centre footprint globally so this allows you further choice in where your data should be housed.
• Limited customisation — you are left with a one size fits all solution and this means that there are limitations on tailoring the software to your particular business.

SaaS has many advantages and I feel that this could be the future of all third party applications as it allows users to easily consume them without burdening the internal IT Team with additional workload.

Platform as a Service:

Imagine hiring out a concert hall. The concert hall will supply the necessary fittings and fixtures such as lighting, a sound system and seats for the audience. A band will then use the concert hall to put on a gig without having to construct a venue from scratch. Note: in this example the concert hall is acting as a platform for the band.

In the world of Cloud Computing Services this is how PaaS works. Think about the popular blogging site WordPress and when you use their hosting service. WordPress give you all the necessary tools to run WordPress as well as supply the computing infrastructure to run it on.

It is then up to you to create the content for your blog and customise your page with various add-ons that you wish to integrate. Remember you are not responsible for the underlying WordPress infrastructure or application just for creating the content.

The advantages of PaaS include:

• Increased Application testing and deployment — new applications can be brought online faster as the complexity of building the application from scratch is removed with a base application being provided by the PaaS provider. This allows development teams to try various configurations and assess performance in hours rather than weeks which in turn brings faster deployment times.
• Remove workload from your operations teams — the application platform and infrastructure is supplied by the provider and they will be responsible for upgrades, security and maintenance meaning your teams do not need as much interaction.
• Reduce your internal infrastructure requirements — PaaS allows application developers to develop and manage applications without needing to purchase additional hardware which takes up space in your data centre. This is due to the PaaS provider supplying and managing the underlying infrastructure.
• Auto Scaling to meet demand — a key advantage of PaaS is the platforms ability to scale as and when required. This can be both upscaling and down scaling based on parameters that can be set in advance ensuring you get consistent performance — a good example here is Azure SQL.

The disadvantages of PaaS include:

• Limited Functions — the majority of PaaS services come with reduced functionality — take Azure SQL, it only provides a subset of Microsoft SQL Server functions.
• Vendor Lock in — When developing applications on PaaS, they will be tailored to that particular PaaS provider’s platform, when looking to move providers this could be an issue.

PaaS is particularly important for developers as it allows them to focus on the value added features rather than the underlying platform and infrastructure. It also gives an IT Department further agility in helping get projects online faster. This flexibility and agility brought by PaaS is giving real business benefits and the key is to understand how you can take advantage of them.

Infrastructure as a Service:

IaaS can be thought of as when you rent an unfurnished flat. You get the keys and it is up to you to furnish the flat with items such as a sofa, television or microwave. Note the landlord is responsible for general maintenance and upkeep of the property.

From a Cloud Computing resource stand point IaaS (the flat described above) would be known as a Virtual Machine. The virtual machines come from shared resources in terms of a hypervisor — imaging the hypervisor to be the tower block in which the flat sits. The Virtual Machine can then be upgraded in terms of performance and you can add platforms such as Windows or Linux and then on top of this software like Internet Explorer.

IaaS can be used to extend your current data centre and is particularly useful when needing to get projects online fast. Cloud Providers such as Microsoft Azure allow you to spin up the necessary resource such as servers, load balancers and storage in a matter of minutes.

Compared to SaaS and PaaS, when using IaaS, you are responsible for managing applications, data, runtime, middleware, and operating system. The Cloud provider still manages the computing infrastructure such as hypervisors.

The advantages of IaaS include:

· Extending your data centre — One of the greatest benefits of IaaS is the ability to scale up and down quickly in response to business demands. Project timelines can now be brought forward instead of waiting on dedicated servers with long lead times.

· Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery become a reality — for many businesses DR and BC strategies have always been a costly plan as you always needed to double your infrastructure and place it in another location — not any more IaaS allows a business to put a DR Strategy in place and simply turn off the cloud servers, then turn them on once a month or quarterly for patching. This is at a fraction of the price.

· Lift and Shift ability — IaaS Infrastructure allows you to move to the cloud with a “move as is” mentality — if you need to move fast or there is a critical issue in your data centre then cloud computing infrastructure can be used as an alternative and can be spun up in minutes.

· Enterprise IT for all — IaaS allows all business to put in place an Enterprise IT strategy at an SMB price — a good example here is testing platforms that used to cost the earth can now be spun up and down as and when necessary to decrease the risk of issues when production or live environment changes take place.

The disadvantages of IaaS include:

· Continued maintenance tasks — unlike SaaS and PaaS you are still responsible for maintenance including patching and server configuration. This adds more non value tasks to your already busy IT Departments schedule.

· Mandatory Maintenance from Vendors — as always in IT, critical updates need to be applied when issues are exploited by attackers in various operating systems. When this occurs companies like Microsoft will typically give 72 hours’ notice before they patch the system, this is something you don’t have control over as a business no matter how big you are. Note: there are ways around this with Cloud Providers such as Microsoft Azure providing Availability Sets to ensure you will always have infrastructure online during the mandatory maintenance period.

· Latency from on premise to cloud — a number of companies could be looking to link cloud applications back to on premises applications — there could be increased latency between you and the cloud provider which doesn’t give the best user experience. Note: this can be avoided with the likes of Microsoft Express Route but this comes at a cost.

IaaS is giving businesses access to resources that used to have massive costs or long lead times attached to them. Cloud Providers such Microsoft are constantly making IaaS resources cheaper. This occurs as the population of users is continually increasing therefore bringing economies of scale to Microsoft. They then pass these savings onto their customers so everyone benefits — the piece IT led businesses need to work out is how or when to use IaaS.

Review with a view

The SPI Model offering gives businesses alternatives and choice across applications and computing infrastructure. Gone are the days of hiring a massive IT Support team or having an overloaded team as offerings such as Office 365 are allowing you to offload a number of tasks.

Even IaaS allows you to clear your server room of infrastructure and remove the need for power and cooling. You can essentially outsource these tasks to Cloud Vendors such as Microsoft and get on with value added work.

Choosing the right model for what you are trying to achieve is key here and understanding the benefits of SPI can really help you to make this decision. If you are not sure challenge the vendor to get the true value of moving to this model.

MyMateTech’s Conclusion

SPI is changing how businesses consume IT and how vendors deliver services. SPI gives a massive advantage to businesses however its understanding how to adopt the services and how they will work for your business.

Imagine you were a one-man online start up — today cloud computing is giving any business the ability to move fast. In the current economic climate this is what makes the difference between you and your competitors. I am sure there are many IT Heads out there that would love to start again with the way today’s services are offered. Services such as SaaS and PaaS allow you to stop wasting precious time on building applications internally and from scratch. SaaS services such as Office 365 allow you to mobilise your business so that they can work from anywhere — imagine starting a business today and having an employee set up with email and office applications in less than 20 minutes.

For the enterprise world SPI allows them to take advantage of all the great benefits that cloud can bring. For example, if the marketing department want to do a reactive online brand campaign due to a competitor’s new campaign, they don’t have to wait 8 weeks just to get the infrastructure place. Enterprises can use IaaS computing resources to have the base of the project available in hours rather than months.

Cloud is changing the way we do business and allowing us to go faster than before. Don’t get left behind and take advantage of the SPI Model where possible. It allows you to offload a number of tasks away from your business and back onto the provider. Thus allowing you to focus on your business, product, service and most importantly your customers.