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David Linthicum on Changing the Enterprise
David S. Linthicum is a thought leader in the EAI, SOA, enterprise architecture, and Web 2.0 spaces. He formed David S. Linthicum, LLC (www.davidlinthicum.com), a consulting organization focusing on enterprise architecture, SOA, and use of the next-generation Web within the enterprise. Write him at david@linthicumgroup.com. See More by David Linthicum Connectivity: The Achilles Heel of SaaS
Those who push back on SaaS and cloud computing typically site security, privacy, and legal issues, but they almost never talk about connectivity. Perhaps they should. In the recent shenanigans surrounding cut fiber lines in Silicon Valley, those affected quickly understood that the Internet, which is required to gain access to your SaaS provider, can be gone in an instant. With their Internet connection down for most of a day, the affected businesses that use SaaS could not access any SaaS-delivered applications, including ERP, CRM, and Sales Force Automation. For those of you who still believe that the Internet was and is designed by the military to get around the destruction of major nodes and will save you from situations like this, you are just plain wrong. If the fiber going from the back-bone is cut, not only is your connection lost, but any cell towers hooked up to the same fiber are lost as well, thus no air cards as an option. "The outage affected thousands of users in the San Jose and Santa Clara areas of Silicon Valley, cutting off both landlines and cellular service, including services like Verizon, which used the fiber-optic cables as a backhaul. City officials were advising residents with medical emergencies to drive themselves to the hospital, as the 911 emergency services were also taken down by the cuts." The technical fact is that when you use SaaS, you're completely dependent upon the Internet being active, since all information, interfaces and other aspects of the applications are all Web-delivered. Most don't consider this fact until they are, one, in an Internet outage, such as the one that just occurred in San Jose, or two, working in areas with no connectivity, such as a plane. So, those who use SaaS for critical business applications in an area affected by an outage are "down" until the local telecom companies get the problem corrected. Those who have their own private enterprise systems on-premise won't be affected by the Internet outage, for the most part, and can continue to operate. The funny thing about this is that it's so obvious yet so often overlooked. It's a clear risk to the business that's not taken into account until connectivity issues arise. The trouble really arises when the connection is down for days, perhaps weeks, during natural disasters such as hurricanes, earth quakes, and floods, and the business has to stop in its tracks, unable to book sales, track inventory or update ledgers. While they were sold on SaaS as a hardened system that has an amazing up-time record, the issues around connectivity are out of the control of the SaaS players. So, should you remove SaaS from consideration as a legitimate enterprise system, given the risks around connectivity? No, SaaS is still a great option for leveraging enterprise applications that are as good or better than on-premise options. However, like any architectural component, you need to look at the risk of outages, no matter if the SaaS systems go down, your clients fail, or the connectivity between them somehow stops working, as was the case with the vandalism in the Silicon Valley. You do have the option of establishing redundant connections, using services such as WiMax or even Satellite-delivered Internet. However those options, even when sitting at the ready but unused, are very expensive. You're probably using SaaS or cloud computing to reduce costs, so this may not make sense. SaaS clearly has some tradeoffs. This is another one to consider if you have not considered it already.  This is a public forum. United Business Media and its affiliates are not responsible for and do not control what is posted herein. United Business Media makes no warranties or guarantees concerning any advice dispensed by its staff members or readers. Community standards in this comment area do not permit hate language, excessive profanity, or other patently offensive language. Please be aware that all information posted to this comment area becomes the property of United Business Media LLC and may be edited and republished in print or electronic format as outlined in United Business Media's Terms of Service. Important Note: This comment area is NOT intended for commercial messages or solicitations of business.
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