One of the larger rooms in the office had a CD replication machine. Years ago, when CDs were part of everyday life, I had worked for ODME, a leading producer of optical disc machines, so I was surprised when I recognized one in an ISV's office.
I couldn't help but ask, "What the hell are you doing with that thing?" (In a much nicer way, of course). He explained that he was using it to make software updates to send to his 950 clients. Ah, yes, of course.
So when you think back to those days and the excruciating manual work that was required to provide upgrades, it becomes clear why SaaS and cloud-based software is today's holy grail for ISVs. Doing an upgrade on a single server obviously beats sending out 950 CDs and then having to handle the 200 related phone calls from your (semi-annoying) customers who are struggling to install it.
Let's skip the other part of the nightmare where, as an ISV, we had to manage our own internal server (farm), get an additional internet line as backup, backups and hot-swappable disks, and struggled to find backup and recovery plans for power outages and any other disaster that could take us offline. Let's escape in the time machine and fast forward to today's dreamy cloud setups.
Keeping the cloud at your service
Today, we expect the cloud to work. The ideal cloud scenario offers unlimited and variable scalability, is low-cost and extremely cost-effective with a pay-as-you-go model. And yet, running your application in the cloud is worth it because it's always "live," offers stellar speed and performance, and offers continuous deployment of existing systems. Truth be told, it's more than a best practice for ISVs, it's the only way an ISV can run a business that makes sense.
Yvo Boom
VP Corporate Development at Servoy
(Published on the Servoy Blog)
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