AGILE & SAAS MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN By Aviram Eisenberg, Founder and CEO of Ignite, Israel and Germany

WE’LL DEFINITELY NOT BE ABLE TO TALK ABOUT SAAS WITHOUT REFER-RING TO AGILE AS WELL, SO WHO KNOWS WHICH ADDITIONAL CHANG-ES WE WILL SEE IN THE FUTURE AND HOW THE TWO TRENDS WILL CON-TINUE TO INFLUENCE ONE ANOTHER.

DEVSOFT

SOFTWAREDEVELOPMENT OUTSOURCING

OUTSOURCING JOURNAL SPECIAL

EDITION

Article abstract from the Special

Edition of the Outsourcing

Journal “SOFT DEV - Software

Development Outsourcing”

AGILE & SAAS

Page 2The Outsourcing Journal “SOFT DEV” All rights reserved.

Once in a while, the IT com-munity creates ideas which evolve continuously into technologies and business trends that impact the whole industry. Such examples are “Software as a Service” (SaaS) business model and “Agile” methodology mindset. The two trends seem not to relate with each other, as they cover different areas of expertise, but the fact that these two trends are growing raises the question: Are SaaS and Agile connected? I’ll try to explore whether those phenomena go hand-in-hand or are they completely not connected.

Saas is a business trend that allows companies to access business functionality at a considerably lower cost than paying for licensed applica-tions, since Saas offers a sub-scription based plan. Moreo-ver, there is a growing trend of software companies adopting SaaS business model, as soft-ware is no longer deployed on premises, but remotely available on the Internet. Con-sequently, SaaS has been in-corporated into the strategy of all leading enterprise soft-ware companies, while one of the biggest selling points for these companies is the poten-tial to reduce IT support costs by outsourcing hardware and

software maintenance and support to the SaaS provider.

Obviously, one of the main promoters of the SaaS busi-ness model is the technologi-cal ability to provide software in the cloud. In the cloud mod-el, SaaS providers install and operate application software in the cloud and cloud users access the software anywhere. The ability to scale the appli-cation to a virtually unlimited number of clients is one of the main drivers of cloud tech-nologies. This is achieved by using multi-tenant software architectures, which basically means supporting multiple clients in the same application instance, but also with virtual-ization technologies, which means adding more comput-ing resources as needed, with-out any hardware changes be-ing necessary.

This approach is very cost-effective for the SaaS pro-vider, who has the flexibility of spending for the needed hardware resources and in-creases or decreases the com-puting power as he needs, without any infrastructure change overhead.

Cloud infrastructure also of-fers mechanisms which could be extremely costly if hosted

by the client himself, like load balancing or failover capabili-ties.

The same approach is used for bandwidth allocation. Depending on the needs of a particular client, different amounts of bandwidth can be allocated to particular cli-ents, or different services like CDN(content delivery net-work) so that some of the re-sources are distributed and the clients can access them from the closest and the fast-est locations.

Mobility also is a strong argu-mentation towards adoption of a SaaS solution by a client, since many SaaS providers already offer also mobile in-terfaces for android, windows mobile , IOS phones or tab-lets. An online application, which is how SaaS solutions are usually exposed to the clients, doesn’t need special infrastructure, or connection management software like intranet applications do: VPN client software, special key or tokens, which makes mobility virtually impossible.

Studies show that SaaS solu-tions will grow in importance: Gartner Group estimates that SaaS revenue will be more than double its 2010 numbers

by 2015 and reach a projected $21. 3 billion.

In parallel to that, Agile de-velopment methodology is becoming more and more popular (some say already reached its peak). While SaaS is eventually a business model in the software business, Ag-ile focuses on development methodologies and offers a set of best practices to devel-op software. Put simply, ag-ile development is a different manner of managing research & development teams and projects.

The use of the word agile in the context we’re so familiar with nowadays, derives from the agile manifesto. Back in 2001, a group of professionals got together to discuss about the too often failures of the traditional approach to man-aging software development. They brought forward to the public, the agile manifesto, comprising four important values, which are still relevant today . It says, “we value”: - Individuals and interactions over processes and tools- Working software over com-prehensive documentation- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation- Responding to change over following a plan

There are various method-ologies that are commonly known as agile, because they support the values I men-tioned above and keep up with the principles of the agile manifesto. From DSDM ( the original agile development method), to Scrum and XP, Agile proved itself as a break-through on the IT market. Ac-tually, there is a continuously increasing volume of success story, where companies have managed to improve the per-formance of their IT projects and development teams.

Forrester Research published an in-depth report about how the Agile methodologies are being used. According to the report, iterative, test-driven, and collaborative approach to building software is now definitely in the main stream. From the 1,298 professional developers surveyed, 35% said that one form of Agile or another best rendered the way they create applications.

That represented a greater proportion than any other method. For example, the “Waterfall” approach, Agile’s opposite was chosen by just 13% of the respondents.

Agile has been continuously gaining momentum since

the introduction of the “agile manifesto” in 2001 while SaaS has also been gaining momen-tum, roughly during the same period. This is far from being mere coincidence. Moreover, there is a key idea in the “ag-ile manifesto”, which links the two concepts: “Responding to change over following a plan”.

Both trends are clearly going in the same direction, target-ing fast feedback cycles ,the trial of small features while prioritizing the ones that be-come popular and last but not least compromising scope and not quality. This approach emphasizes the great benefits of the SaaS-Agile working as a team.

Obviously SaaS vendors have quickly adopted the Agile methodologies. Their busi-ness model requires fast and frequent deliveries to produc-tion, unlike the old waterfall methodology which yielded up to 3-4 new versions per year, SaaS users want more – they expect to see new fea-tures delivered every month or so.

They are also unforgiving when it comes to consistently meeting due dates of new ver-sions and having high prod-uct quality as in a subscription

AGILE & SAAS

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model (unlike on-premise li-cense) they can easily switch to the competitor. Agile fits these business needs of SaaS vendors like a glove.

For example, think of a client who requires a feature a.s.a.p. In a century where everything moves on the fast-forward, a change made at the right time, can worth a lot. Some-times, we encounter specific activities, which can’t be paral-lelized and can’t be executed following a certain sequence, for example, the flow devel-opment-testing-deployment.

Organizations are also divided to reflect this type of work: de-velopment team, testing team and IT/deployment team. So there is no obvious way us-ing this approach to make things faster. Even if the de-velopment will not last long, the following testing and de-ployment can take weeks. We need a different approach on the matter which can rapidly answer the requests on the market.

This is where “continuous in-tegration” steps in, one of the main tools for Agile practice, to help SaaS vendors. The “con-tinuous integration” practice decreases the gap between the development, testing and

operation teams. The devel-opers are given more power to make changes faster, hav-ing automated tests and auto-matic deployment. There are already debates about “con-tinuous deployment” or “con-tinuous delivery”, automation of the deployment process to production environment. This assures a shorter release time and lower costs.

The continuous delivery doesn’t represent just a set of tools. SaaS vendors have adopted this Agile practice and started developing it even further to fit their ever growing business needs for frequent and seamless deliv-eries to production. They have purified a process which com-pletely changes how things are done. It impacts the men-talities, the workflows and in-teractions between teams; it impacts how development is made, basically how code is written.

Eventually it helped SaaS companies to reach true busi-ness Agility. A level in Agile development very few of the early adopters of Agile reached – an organization which is completely focused on the needs of its users and is able to change direction re-acting promptly to changes in

the market.

SaaS vendors embraced Ag-ile due to business needs and then – started changing Agile to meet their new challenges. SaaS development created the development operations, “devop” to enable a closer work between R&D and the support teams.

The nature of SaaS develop-ment work requires a close collaboration between all the teams in the company. The re-sult everyone expected is that support has started moving to development and “devops” is the new support working un-der R&D – an Agile concept of having independent self-con-tained teams was enhanced by SaaS vendors.

I believe that there is a lot of synergy and influence between the two trends.

There is clearly no room for the waterfall model in the fu-ture of SaaS business. Having devops as part of the R&D team to reach true continu-ous delivery will have a clear impact on the segregation of the work done by develop-ment, testing and operation-al/deployment teams. They will have to find a common ground to work together. We’ll

AGILE & SAAS

Page 4The Outsourcing Journal “SOFT DEV” All rights reserved.

definitely not be able to talk about SaaS without referring to Agile as well, so who knows which additional changes we will see in the future and how the two trends will continue to influence one another.

The author: Aviram Eisenberg is entrepreneur and acclaimed speaker, Founder and CEO of Ignite – a global software de-velopment company that spe-cializes in Agile R&DUnder his leadership, Ignite is

recognized as an Agile leader in Israel and Europe, introduc-ing innovative methodologies and enhancing the R&D excel-lence of industry leaders such as NokiaSiemens Networks, Microsoft, VMWare and AT&T. Acting as Ambassador of Ag-ile, Aviram is an avid promoter of this school of thought. He speaks about Agile and its’ im-pact on the dynamic, complex world of R&D and is frequently spreading the word in profes-sional conferences and meet-

ups worldwide. Contact: info@igniteoutsourcing.com

AGILE & SAAS

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6 - GERMAN SOFTWARE INDUSTRY SURVEY 2013Abstract of the research results by Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany

12 - APPLICATION MODERNIZATION REVISEDCornelia Stan, Creative Consultant at Accesa, Romania

18 - A NEW WAVE OF APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT OUTSOURCINGAlbert Ma, Chief Innovation Officer at Insigma Hengtian, Hangzhou, China

22 - MIGRATION OF A GLOBAL LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM Olga Iatsyna, IT Public Relations & Marketing Expert, Softengi, Ukraine

26 - PROJECT TYPES IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT OUTSOURCINGAdolf Kohl, CTO at BulPros Consulting, Bulgaria and Deutschland

30 - IN ITO, FAR IS THE NEW NEARLaszlo Klucs (Services & Outsourcing Consultant) and Stephen Teeuwen (freelance writer) for CBI (Centre for the Promotion of Imports an angency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands)

36 - AGILE & SAAS MATCH MADE IN HEAVENAviram Eisenberg, Founder and CEO of Ignite, Israel and Germany

42 - MANAGING INNOVATION: ROBUST SAAS PLATFORMMihai Catan, Software Solutions Manager, Sistec, Romania

48 - WHY HEALTHCARE IT- COMPANIES SHOULD CROWD TEST THEIR APPLICATIONSMithun Sridharan, Managing Director at Blue Ocean Solutions PLC, Germany and Communication Chair, German Outsourcing Association

56 - IS MANAGING REMOTE TEAMS DIFFERENT FROM MANAGING LOCAL TEAMS? Hugo Messer, CEO, Bridge Global IT Staffing, The Netherlands

60 - OUTSOURCING GOVERNANCE IN EASTERN EUROPE, OR HOW TO EAT AN ELEPHANT? Elena Kozlovskaya, Founder, Business Data Processing, Belarus

64 - CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS - THE UNITED NATIONS INFORMATION ECONOMY REPORTThe United Nations, New York and Geneva

72 - ORGANIZATIONS & CONTACTSCorporate profiles and contacts

INSIDE

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GERMAN SOFTWARE INDUSTRY SURVEY 2013

THIS IS AN ABSTRACT OF THE SURVEY REPORT DEM-ONSTRATING A NUMBER OF IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF THE GERMAN SOFTWARE INDUS-TRY 2013

Abstract of the results of the industry survey conducted by Technis-che Universität Darmstadt, Germany

Page 8 Page 8

APPLICATION MODERNIZATION REVISED

WHY SOFTWARE MODERNIZATION IS STRATEGIC, HOW IT GENERATES PRESSURE IN DECISION-MAKING ANDHOW IT DRIVES INNOVATION.

By Cornelia Stan, Creative Consultant at Accesa, Romania

Page 8

A NEW WAVE OF APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT OUTSOURCING

THE MOBILE PHONE IS A GOOD EXAM-PLE, IN THAT IT’S A WHOLE NEW WAY OF DELIVERING INFORMATION TO AN END USER. FEATURES LIKE GEO-LOCATION AND ACCELEROMETERS ARE NOT COMMONLY FOUND ON TRADITIONAL DEVICES, AND REQUIRE A WHOLE NEW SET OF RULES WHEN DESIGNING SOFTWARE.

By Albert Ma, Chief Innovation Officer at Insigma Hengtian, Hangzhou, China.

MIGRATION OF A GLOBAL LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM By Olga Iatsyna, IT Public Relations & Marketing Expert, Softengi, Ukraine

Page 8

PROJECT TYPES IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT OUTSOURCING Von Adolf Kohl, CTO bei BulPros Consulting, Bulgarien und Deutschland

EINE EINORDNUNG DER VERSCHIE-DENEN PROJEKTTYPEN ANHAND DER UNTERSCHIEDLICHEN VERANT-WORTLICHKEITEN WÄHREND DES DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE PROZESSES.

IN ITO, FAR IS THE NEW NEAR By Laszlo Klucs (Services & Outsourcing Consultant) and Stephen Teeuwen (freelance writer) for CBI (Centre for the Promotion of Imports an angency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands)

WHY EUROPE’S SMALL AND MEDIUM PLAYERS SHOULD CONNECT WITH DEVELOPING COUNTRIES NOW – AND HOW THEY CAN DO IT SUCCESSFULLY

Page 8

AGILE & SAAS MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN By Aviram Eisenberg, Founder and CEO of Ignite, Israel and Germany

WE’LL DEFINITELY NOT BE ABLE TO TALK ABOUT SAAS WITHOUT REFER-RING TO AGILE AS WELL, SO WHO KNOWS WHICH ADDITIONAL CHANG-ES WE WILL SEE IN THE FUTURE AND HOW THE TWO TRENDS WILL CON-TINUE TO INFLUENCE ONE ANOTHER.

MANAGING INNOVATION: ROBUST SAAS

By Mihai Catan is a Software Solutions Manager, Sistec, Romania

WHEN IT COMES TO BUILDING AP-PLICATIONS, THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB CAN REALLY MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE.

Page 8

WHY HEALTHCARE IT- COMPANIES SHOULD CROWD TEST THEIR APPLICATIONS By Mithun Sridharan, Managing Director at Blue Ocean Solutions PLC, Germany and Communication Chair, German Outsourcing Association

THE INCREASING ADOPTION AND USE OF MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES IS DISRUPTING THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY. THIS PHENOMENON HAS CREATED INNOVATIVE WAYS, CHANNELS AND TOOLS TO DELIVER HEALTHCARE COST-EFFECTIVELY EVEN IN THE REMOTEST OF PLACES.

Picture: flickr, IntelFreePress: http://www.flickr.com/photos/intelfreepress/

IS MANAGING REMOTE TEAMS DIFFERENT FROM MANAGING LOCAL TEAMS?

By Hugo Messer, CEO, Bridge Global IT Staffing, The Netherlands

THE ROTHSCHILD BROTHERS RAN MOST OF EUROPE’S BANKING WITH A “DISTRIBUTED TEAM” THAT RAN ENTIRELY ON LETTERS AND COURIERS. DID THEY WHINE ABOUT THE PROBLEMS OF DISTRIBUTED TEAMS?

Page 8

OUTSOURCING GOVERNANCE IN EASTERN EUROPE, OR HOW TO EAT AN ELEPHANT?By Elena Kozlovskaya, Founder, Business Data Processing, Belarus

THE LEVEL OF TECHNICAL EXPERTISE IS DISTRIBUTED EQUALLY, I.E. GOING WITH A SMALLER VENDOR DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN HIGHER RISKS. EASTERN EUROPEAN VENDORS HAVE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF FORMALIZATION OF THEIR INTERNAL MANAGEMENT PROCESSES AND RANGE FROM CMMI LEVEL 2 TO 5.

Page 8Page 8

INSIDE

download the issue free here

also in this issue

CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY RECOM-MENDATIONS - THE UNITED NATIONS INFORMATION ECONOMY REPORTThe Software Industry and Developing Countries, published by The United Nations, New York and Geneva

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OUTSOURCING JOURNAL SPECIAL

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