SaaS (Software as a Service), also commonly referred to as On-Demand, is a software application delivery model that is helping organizations significantly reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of their IT infrastructure and operations. By accessing applications over the Internet, companies can eliminate the huge up-front licensing costs and ongoing maintenance costs required by business applications that are deployed on premise. Gartner expects the SaaS market to triple in size to over $19.3 billion by 2011. MySQL is a key component behind this explosive growth. MySQL provides a number of unique advantages making it the database of choice for leading SaaS vendors including Zimbra, RightNow and Proofpoint.

Download the Case Study: RightNow Delivers Software as a Service using MySQL »

Download the White Paper: MySQL Enterprise for Managed Hosting and SaaS Providers »

As an increasingly popular application delivery model, SaaS vendors must overcome a number of business and technical challenges to be successful. These include:

• Fast Time to Market - Competition is intense because of the low barriers to entry and SaaS vendors must deliver new functionality to their customers on an ongoing basis - often as frequently as every month.
• Exponential Scalability - SaaS providers add new customers and users quickly, so vendors must be able to scale their applications from hundreds to millions of users in a short period of time. Reliability- SaaS vendors are expected to deliver continuous availability of their applications without downtime, otherwise they may jeopardize the SLA (Service Level Agreements) with their customers.
• Security - To protect the privacy of their data, SaaS providers must implement strict authorization capabilities, security policies and business processes.
• Pricing Pressure - With tremendous pricing pressure, SaaS vendors need to reduce their up-front capital expenses and ongoing operating costs.

SaaS vendors are providing solutions in numerous market areas. Some of the most popular SaaS applications include:

• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) so that companies can manage sales leads and customer communications
• Financials so you can manage financials, order fulfillment, purchasing, time and billing, and payroll
• Human Resources to facilitate recruiting efforts and manage employee performance, goals and career development
• Messaging & Collaboration that include an integrated suite of applications including email, contacts, document authoring, calendar, and VoIP.

MySQL is a key component of the proven, open source LAMP ( Linux, Apache, MySQL Perl/PHP/Python) stack, enabling SaaS vendors to cost-effectively build highly scalable, highly available hosted applications. Plus, MySQL Enterprise includes the most comprehensive set of MySQL database software, services and production support so SaaS providers can achieve the highest levels of reliability, security and uptime for their MySQL applications. Many of the leading SaaS vendors, including Zimbra and RightNow rely on MySQL for the following reasons:

• Scale-out - MySQL is enabling SaaS vendors to exponentially grow their customer base and the volume of data they need to manage. Adding servers via MySQL Replication is fast and easy and MySQL Enterprise provides SaaS vendors with the tools to improve the performance and availability of their scale-out environment. For example, MySQL has enabled vendors such as Zimbra to quickly build a highly scalable modular scale-out architecture that now services over 8 million users.
• Reliability - SaaS vendors need to deliver highly available applications so that they can fulfill their SLA commitments. SasS vendors like RightNow are delivering four nines of availability (99.99% uptime) by using MySQL Replication to implement a highly available database architecture.
• Add New Features Quickly - To stay competitive, SaaS vendors must deliver new value to their customers, which requires regular releases with new features. MySQL's ease of use allows SaaS vendors to focus on the delivering application functionality rather than spending time maintaining the database.
• Low Administration - To control costs SaaS vendors must find ways to cost-effectively manage their infrastructure. MySQL's low administration capabilities allow vendors to manage more servers. Plus, MySQL Enterprise offers a suite of Advisors including an Administration Advisor, Security Advisor, and Performance Advisor that act as a "Virtual DBA" for your resource constrained team. RightNow manages more than 200 servers with only 4 DBAs -- a much better ratio than could be achieved using proprietary database technology.
• Cost-effective - With increasing competition and price pressures, SaaS vendors must find a way to optimize their limited financial resources. MySQL enables SaaS vendors to get their hosted services up and running without paying millions of dollars in up-front licensing fees. MySQL Enterprise, a subscription based offering that maps well to SaaS vendors' business models.
• MySQL Enterprise - MySQL Enterprise includes monitoring tools and database best practices advisors to help SaaS implement the highest levels of uptime. MySQL Enterprise includes:
  • MySQL Enterprise Server, the most reliable, secure and up-to date version of the world's most popular open source database
  • MySQL Enterprise Monitor that continuously monitors your database and proactively advises you on how to implement MySQL best practices
  • MySQL 24x7 Production Support with guaranteed response times to assist you in the development, deployment and management of MySQL applications

SaaS providers can host their applications on premise using their own IT infrastructure or with a hosting provider. The "Authorized MySQL Hosting Partner" program gives SaaS vendors the confidence that they can receive these benefits through certified Managed Hosting Service Providers with expert MySQL skills.

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