The A-to-Z of SaaS purchasing

Vendors of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions take complete responsibility for the software and cloud-based infrastructure, and their customer, such as communications service providers (CSPs), pay a regular fee for access. This makes SaaS drastically different from the traditional on-premises model of software delivery and consumption that involves CSPs managing infrastructure and dealing with inflexible hardware or software configurations. It is not just a new deployment option; it is also a new business model.

CSPs must weigh up the various costs and benefits of SaaS when considering how to deploy their business applications in support of their services. They must consider whether the various benefits of SaaS deployment outweigh the benefits of alternative deployments once all costs over time have been factored in.