The solution pack provides the platform, tools, and best practices needed to deliver SaaS and is aimed at ISVs and hosting service providers that want to offer hosted services. It is based around four hosted application needs as identified by Microsoft, which are uptime, service provisioning, security, and management.
Supporting components include Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, which helps identify and resolve critical issues in the hosted environment with the aim of ensuring maximum uptime; the Microsoft Provisioning System to automate administrative service management tasks like adding new users, updating directory entries, and provisioning applications and services; and the Windows-based Hosting for Applications component provides tools and systems to automate and customize patch and update management. It also provides tools that allow for centralized management of the hosted environment.
At its Convergence user conference in April, Bill Gates confirmed the importance of SaaS to Microsoft, a statement that built on internal emails by Bill Gates and chief technical officer Ray Ozzie toward the end of 2005 that stressed the disruptive nature of SaaS and that Microsoft was behind the curve.
The company is committed to a mixed on-premise and on-demand model, but this is as much as sign that it has been slow to recognize the model as a belief in the value of the mixed mode of operation. It lacks the hallmark of a hosted business multi-tenant architecture, so all its released efforts so far have been geared to enable existing technologies to be run in a hosted environment.
