Configurability in SaaS enables customers to implement a system
which can be used in a very short amount of time, bypassing on
premise challenges such as server provisioning and software
installation. However SaaS does not mean only being able to do
configuration. Salesforce.com as an example provides a very
flexible platform for building one’s own custom objects and UI, as
do many other vendors. This enables customers to model their
business process which is unique to them. The keys to “infinitely
configurability” are standards and decomposed services. The
standards provide automated service-oriented ways in which
composite solutions come together with less work, and decomposed
services ensure there is useful content to draw from.
Configurability allows for some unique features in each tenant’s
application. But a tenant should not expect everything unique in the
application. If one needs everything customized, one won’t have
success with SaaS. SaaS makes sense if the process is simple
enough to be configured. SaaS is a revolutionary approach to using
software which is beneficial to both customers and vendors. The key
requirement being, it is architected correctly. SaaS requires an
architecture that supports end user configuration. The emerging
technologies in .Net framework enable building SaaS applications.
SaaS is one of the biggest technology trends to affect business
applications in recent years. Due to evolving market place and
emerging technologies, SaaS architecture details and
implementation details are open to research. Readers can refer [12],
which gives a comprehensive listing of SaaS related papers
published by Gartner, to familiarize about the key SaaS issues. One
of the key issues for SaaS in the year 2008 according to [11] is that
how will SaaS technology and architecture meet the needs of
evolving business models.