Software as a service

About: Software as a service is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 8514 publications have been published within this topic receiving 136177 citations. The topic is also known as: Service as a Software Substitute & SaaSS.

A Study of Enterprise Software Licensing Models

Abstract: We study an enterprise software vendor’s decision on three prominent licensing models– on-premises, software as a service (SaaS), and hybrid. Our findings indicate that both the customers’ estimation of the future software quality improvement and network effects play critical roles in the software vendor’s choice of optimal licensing models. If the network effects are weak, the enterprise software vendor should choose the on-premises model when customers have a low estimation of the software quality improvement in the upgrade version. The hybrid model should be implemented if this estimation is in the mid-range, while the SaaS model generates the highest profit when customers believe that the upgrade version will have a significant improvement in software quality. As the network effects become stronger, the on-premises model will be dominated by the other two licensing models and is never optimal. In the event of a high upgrade cost and strong network effects, SaaS becomes the best licensing model...

Strategy-Proof Pricing for Cloud Service Composition

Abstract: The on-demand provisions of cloud services create a service market, where users can dynamically select services based on such attractive criteria as price and quality. An intuitive model of a service market is a reverse auction. In the first price auction, however, a service that is cheaper and provides better quality is not necessarily selected. This causes undesirable outcomes both for users and service providers. A possible solution is the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanism, where the dominant strategy for a service provider is to report the true cost of his service. In spite of this desirable property, implementing the VCG mechanism for service composition suffers from computational cost. The calculation of payments to service providers based on the VCG mechanism requires iterative service selection, even though each service selection can be NP-hard. Approximation algorithms cannot be applied because approximate solutions do not assure the desirable property of the VCG mechanism. Thus, we model VCG payments for service markets and propose a dynamic programming (DP)-based algorithm for service selection and VCG payment calculation. Our proposed algorithm solves service selection in quasi-polynomial time and gives an exact solution. Moreover, we extend it and focus on the iterative service selection process for VCG payment calculation to improve its performance. Our series of experiments show that our proposed algorithm solves practical scale service composition.

How a service-oriented architecture may change the software development process

Abstract: IntroductionSoftware development practices have evolved substantially during the past decade. As so called "agile" approaches have gained more acceptance and applications have become progressively more distributed in terms of their physical execution and the development of components, the service-oriented approach to IT architecture has become an important alternative to traditional software development. Another impetus for the trend to a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is provided by enterprise system vendors as they are incorporating the service-oriented paradigm into their products. Substantial efforts related to open standards (such as Web service standards) and open source products (such as open source enterprise service bus, development tools) are further driving a service-oriented approach for information systems.A key question is whether SOA adopters are going to be ready for this change and whether they can provide a technical and an organizational environment in which SOA-related technologies can be leveraged to their full potential. There is some indication that currently this may not be the case. In fact, some organizations that have embarked on SOA-related projects early have experienced disappointments. As with other technology waves, the important question is not whether SOA is inherently a good or a bad idea, but rather how it can be done right in a given context. This article tries to answer this question with respect to the software development process.While much of the literature, both in academia and industry, has focused on business implications of SOA, technological realization, architectural issues, and implementation guidelines, few publications have addressed the impact of SOA on the software development process and its methodology. As with any organizational change, modifications to software development processes or practices entail switching cost. Therefore, individuals as well as organizations are inclined to stay with "proven" methodologies, although adjustments based on task requirements and technology characteristics should be key drivers for the methodology choice and are needed to help adopters leverage the full potential of SOA.This article examines the differences and discusses which parts of development process and methodology may require adjustments to effectively leverage a SOA. It presents the results of a field study suggesting changes to software development practices that are necessary to accommodate the unique properties of the service-oriented approach.

An experience report on the personal software process

Abstract: Individual developers can use quality analysis and management techniques that many consider applicable only to projects and organizations One of the authors, a software practitioner, explains how the personal software process (PSP) gave him the training he needed The software industry's demand to achieve predictability and consistency in the face of rapid change is significant The PSP framework helps an individual to meet these demands Using the PSP has provided the author with several benefits His estimation accuracy has improved significantly However, adding more data to his historical database will help further improve his estimating skills As it is said: "there is no substitute for hard work to be successful" Similarly, "there is no substitute for more data to improve an individual's personal processes" The author's current goal is to narrow the percentage error in his estimates to within roughly 5% He also plans to focus on improving early defect removal through more effective reviews and preventing defects by improving skills and practices