Application Hosting

Application hosting is a application distribution system where the applications e.g. Peoplesoft HCM, CRM etc. are maintained and managed by a Application Service Provider (ASP) and is made available to client over internet. Hosting provider is responsible for support, maintenance, installations, upgrades and security on 24x7 basis.

According to Gartner, Inc. Business process as a service (BPaaS) represent the largest segment(77%), Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is the fastest-growing segment of the public cloud and Software as a service (SaaS) is the next-largest segment. According to a recent market report, 40% Of CRM Systems sold are SaaS-Based.


Considerations for application hosting-

• Storage requirements
• Environments to be hosted
• Backup/restore services and DR
• SLA monitoring and reporting
• Root access/Security
• Operational tasks
• Testing
• Licensing
• Help Desk and System Support Model

Storage requirements: Use a just-in-time-inventory approach to defer costs until they are essential. How much storage do you need in the next 3-5 years? Break this into both SAN and NAS. How much is needed now? How much additional space is needed each year? Will you archive data over time and pull it out of the main storage area? How much and when?
How many environments to be hosted: Each environment has different requirements in terms of support, availability, operational tasks and access. E.g. Staging, training, testing, production and development.
Backup/restore services and DR: Define what is expected to be backed up, how often and when. What happens when there is a disaster and the data center is completely unusable? Do you have a continuity of operations plan?

SLA monitoring and reporting: Identify and define SLAs, Availability and core hours during which availability is required. What all to be monitored? What is the interval for monitoring and the threshold for those items being monitored?

Root access/Security: Who needs root access? Typically, system root access is not given to anyone outside the data center staff, but full application administrative access may be granted to application admin staff.

Operational tasks: Installation, configuration, steady state operations, tuning and database support tasks should be defined. Develop a Standard Operating Procedures Manual.
Testing: Define what types of testing is to be performed and who is to perform them before go live.
Licensing: Define who is responsible for acquiring software licenses and maintenance agreements, as well as who is the party responsible for paying for these licenses. 
Help Desk and System Support: How are the issues escalated, and which parties to be notified in the event of an issue/outage? Develop an escalation and notification matrix update process and review cycle.