Using Software as a Service (SaaS) also known as Cloud Computing

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software delivery method providing access to software remotely as a Web‐based service. Users don't need to invest in additional hardware since software is hosted remotely. SaaS is also referred to as Hosted Application Services or Cloud Computing. This method of delivery ultimately helps companies spend money on product and people to enhance their business, rather than on hardware and people to maintain it.
  
SaaS provides a cost effective new computing model for small‐to‐midsize business. Computing power, accessed over the Internet, becomes your server and data center. If you currently use software such as the Google suite of online products, Salesforce.com, TurboTax online, etc., you are using SaaS.

The decision to move to SaaS is both technical and financial. The following is a list of Frequently Asked Questions to help you make the best decision for your company.

Financial:
What are the short term financial considerations in buying an on-site solution vs. a hosted one?

• SaaS eliminates the upfront expenditures in hardware purchase and installation, network infrastructure and maintenance. SaaS allows you access to the features and benefits of the software at a fraction of the cost.
• IT staffing is minimized or in some cases eliminated. Hosted services are professionally maintained in data world class centers. There is no need to have a full time IT person to maintain infrastructure.

Technical:
Why should I outsource hosting of my software from in-house to your company?
SaaS will reduce the costs for hardware and related maintenance agreements, reduce IT staffing and provide a secure environment accessible from anywhere in the world - if you can get to the Internet, you can get to your data.

How often do you patch your servers?
Microsoft usually releases weekly patches. In accordance with Microsoft updates, we patch our servers weekly with new updates to prevent viruses, spyware, etc.

What types of backup do you provide and how often are backups checked and tested?
We provide three types of backup:

• Every 24 hrs, AIMS requires each company to create a new onsite backup which is then automatically copied to a separate server for storage.
• Every 24 hrs an onsite backup is done of all customer data.
• Every 7 days our backups are sent to an offsite location outside of California in case of a disaster within the state.

We do the following checks on our backups:

• Onsite backup is completed every day.
• Once a month, we restore both our onsite and offsite backups for testing to ensure our backup systems are working properly.
• Offsite backup is checked every 7 days.

What type of redundancy do you offer and how is this redundancy checked?
In order to provide the highest uptime for our servers, we utilize a number of techniques to provide redundancy and updates. These include redundant storage systems in a cluster and redundant servers for load balancing. This ensures that one failed disk or one failed server will not result in any down time.

Our server disks are checked once a week to confirm the disks are up to standard. We also check each redundant server once a week for errors to ensure the machines are performing accurately.

How do you protect your servers against viruses, malware, spyware and other threats?
We utilize a number of techniques such as the following:

• Commercial grade Firewall Systems are used to control access to our systems.
• We also use commercial grade Anti Virus, Anti Spyware, and Anti Malware to prevent infection of our systems.
• Our systems are patched on a weekly bases or when urgent patches are released, to ensure all known vulnerabilities are closed.

Again, the decision to move to SaaS is both technical and financial. It eliminates upfront costs for hardware, network infrastructure and installation. SaaS allows you access to the features and benefits of the software more quickly by eliminating internal hardware and network installations and offers it at a fraction of the cost.  Ultimately, the choice is unique to you and your business.