Acumatica

Flexible and cost-effective option for Small and Medium Size Businesses.

What is Cloud ERP Software?

Cloud-based computing (“the Cloud”) is one of the leading technology topics in the world. Cloud computing,sometimes called on-demand computing, uses the Internet to provide shared computing resources and storage of records or documents. The term covers everything from emailing or photo sharing on a commercial service like Google to hosting the entire computing infrastructure of a global corporation from remote data centers.

The Benefits of Cloud Computing

  • Functionality Licensing with the Acumatica standard suites and optional add-on features
  • Computing power and data storage size needed now and when your business changes
  • Deployment options ranging from SaaS, hosted in a private cloud or on-premise, which can be changed as needed
  • Licensing models of annual subscription or perpetual license
  • Data access to your data at any time, unlike many closed systems
  • Device mobility to easily switch between desired mobile device such as an Apple iPad, iPhone and Google Android or use a Windows, Mac or Linux desktop computer.
  • All the flexibility above, plus the safety and security of a hosting provider such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure public clouds.

    • Licensing options: Purchase or Subscription

  • Perpetual or Purchase: These terms refer to when a company BUYS a software license. The company pays to own the license and also pays an annual maintenance fee for upgrades.
  • Subscription: The company pays an annual or monthly charge to use the software license. Upgrades to the software is usually included in the subscription price.

    • Deployment options: On-premise, Hosted, or SaaS

  • On-premise or in-house: The company is responsible for the infrastructure (hardware, system software, communication hardware, software on user devices, etc.) and the deployment of the application software (implementation, support, upgrading, etc.)
  • Hosted: The company or hoster buys a license for the software. The hoster manages all, or most, of the infrastructure and software deployment as described above. The hoster can be an independent company or a division of the company itself. Hosting is a way to outsource IT operations.
  • Software as a Service (SaaS): This newest method of deployment is a combined software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and hosted by the software provider, all for a single price that is typically a fixed amount. In many cases the software provider uses a Public Cloud for the hosting.

    Private Cloud and Public Cloud

    Private cloud is privately owned and maintained by the company or a hoster. Based on business requirements or regulations, sometimes this may be the only option. Public cloud is owned by a service company, such as Microsoft, IBM or Amazon. The service provides all the hardware, load balancing, backup and security. Hybrid cloud is a blended approach with a mix of on-premises, private cloud and third-party, public cloud services.

    Multi-tenancy

    • Multi-tenancy is where the Cloud software provider has single instance (version) of software on a server and serves multiple tenants (customers) simultaneously.
    • Single-tenancy is where each customer has their own application and data base.

      • Cost Savings

    • It is believed that multi-tenancy reduces the cost for the software provider, which is absolutely true for cloud apps that are quickly purchased and downloaded like Pandora, Facebook, etc.
    • For Cloud ERP, the cost savings is insignificant compared to: providing the server hardware, operating system and database; development of the very sophisticated ERP programs; sales and marketing required; as well as on-going support.

    Thin client & Web services

    • Thin client in cloud terms is a device (PC, tablet or phone) that requires NO application or communication software to be downloaded. Any thin client can access the application from anywhere, similar to a web page.
    • Web services are simply application components. They are designed for and used on the Web. Common examples are the widgets on a phone, such a weather. Business applications may include zip code look up, sales tax calculation or much more sophisticated applications