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10 keys to a winning SaaS relationship

It is bad enough having to "deal" with Saas, don't add "the cloud" to further complicate the relationship. Now, instead of having a two-sided relationship, you have a three-sided relationship. (Let the finger-pointing begin.)

Like being able to cleanly get your Data out including the Backup when the SaaS Provider you hire is taken over by the company you rejected as unserviceable.

It's one thing to recover your Data and then have to frantically look for another SaaS Provider when your current SaaS Provider is taken over by another company but you need to remember that they still have a Backup of your Data and you need to ensure that you own that Backup and that it can not be used by the new Owner to make money for themselves. Good luck with that as the Agreement that you negotiated was with the old provider not the new one and getting the Old Agreement Enforced is marginal in most cases.

Of course the SaaS Provider you hire going broke and the Receiver seizing all of your Data and selling them to the Highest Bidder is always an issue that needs to be thought about but when it happens there is nothing that you can do to stop your Data being offered for Auction by the Liquidator.

Col

When people don't like the IT terms like FTP they called it Cloud Storage. sAAs, Cloud computing is another same things as Website and server, the worse thing is none under your control, other than Service Agreement when the company still operate, when they sold or under auction by other company, your company basically doom.

In response to the previous commenters, I humbly disagree. @dlovep, FTP and cloud storage are not the same thing. While the infrastructure and background are the same, the interface and delivery are completely different and, in fact, streamlined. FTP is way too complicated for someone who has trouble opening a browser, not everyone is a software developer knowing all the jargon, ins, and outs.

Further, while there are risks to any investment, I firmly trust in companies like JobNimbus (http://www.jobnimbus.com) who provide services to export all of your data, after which they wipe your data from their system when you want out. The same guarantee is extended if they go under. This is the way cloud services should be insured.

Great article! I would advocate for a written repeatable process for safely onboarding new SaaS technology. Now google "SaaSProtect"! Sorry for my shameless plug, but we have been working on this problem since the early 2000's. The bottom line for any company entrusting their mission critical data to the cloud is to have a contingency plan that they can execute independently of the SaaS provider. Consider the sudden cessation of business, where everything goes dark and the provider is non-responsive. Do you think their DR plan is going to work? Despite all of the testing, if the provider disappears, even the best laid plans will never be executed. That is why Subscribers need to consider this before they sign up. The plan should include a neutral trusted third party that can enable the contingency plan too. Testing data recovery procedures and application continuity with the neutral third party is really the only sure fire way to know that your contingency plan will work too. Lastly, consider this; such a contingency plan that is underwritten and supported by a neutral third party like Iron Mountain is a good way to overcome the risk objection to doing business. If you want practical, useful information on the subject, please let me know.