Vorwort - SSS-Tools für Power System i Syntax System Services

3.5 Software as a Service (SaaS)
by Joe Pluta
Software as a Service (SaaS) is the new buzzword, but pardon me, haven’t we met
before?
What’s old is new, baby. Everything comes back into fashion. Or as one of the networks used
as a catchphrase: It’s new to you!
At least that seems to be what the IT industry is doing these days. An old saw goes
something like this: "Every algorithm was written in the ’60s, and we’re just re-implementing
them." While a bit of an exaggeration, there is a serious kernel of truth underlying that statement.
For example, let’s take "multi-tiered architectures." While all the rage nowadays, especially
with the heavy emphasis on Web services, in reality this particular construct has been around
almost as long as computers themselves. Of course, we didn’t call it "multi-tiered architecture";
we called it by simpler, gentler terms such as "client/server" or "peer-to-peer." And it was a lot
harder, too; you had to decide which communication protocol to use and which hardware to
support, and then come up with your own message structure. And if the two machines weren’t
physically connected, one had to call the other on the telephone using this strange device called
a "modem." None of this Internet and sockets and XML stuff. Yeah, I know: "Back when I was
a boy, we walked five miles to school...uphill...both ways!"
But seriously, my point for all of this is that lately we’ve been seeing a change in computing
and a trend back to an older construct that seemed to have vanished forever.
Software as a Service
So on to the topic of today’s missive: Software as a Service (SaaS). Here is a perfect example
of taking something old and making it new by simply slapping a new label on it.
I mean, look at it. What are we talking about with SaaS? We’re talking about using someone
else’s hardware and software to perform your IT functions. Well, if you weren’t programming
back in the ’70s and ’80s, you might not recognize this particular concept, but back then it was
all the rage. We called it a "Service Bureau," and most companies that weren’t at the Fortune
500 level used it (as did many who were). The reason was quite simple: Few small businesses
could afford the hardware. I don’t recall the going rate for a System/3 Model 15D with a 1502
line printer, but I have to guess it was close to $100,000, and back in 1970 that was some real
dough (about half a million in today’s dollars).
So to have one of these newfangled computing engines, first you had to buy a hugely
expensive machine that required its own power (many of these behemoths required their
own air conditioners). Next, you had to find people to program it. Remember that computer
programming was not a hot topic at that time, and in fact few colleges had any sort of Computer
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