From SaaS to PaaS

Andrs G. Vettori, CTO andres.vettori@vmbc.com

Agenda
About us What is SaaS / PaaS? Differences? Emerios 1.0: our SaaS solution. Our Pain Points Emerios 2.0 : our PaaS solution. Emerios 2.0 Demo Learned lessons

About us

About vmbc
1997: 1998: 1999: 2000: 2001: 2002: 2004: 2005: 2006: 2007: 2008: Inbound and outbound call routing with PreferenceManager 28 DS3s brought on line to scale to the needs of any client Automated call compliance with ComplianceLock Live reporting capabilities with InReport Virtual routing intelligence with Active Listening Multiple message testing with Rapid Recycle Resonance SMS capabilities to 2.2 billion mobile users with VClient Web, Voice, and Mobile interoperability with VLink 360 Artificial intelligence and speech recognition with VoiceRec Mobile internet and rich media delivered by VContent Multi-channel enrollment and verification with ERS

About vmbc
Pioneer the of Message Broadcasting Industry
Authoritative leader in compliance with State & FTC regulations Best record in the industry for state-by-state and HIPPA compliance

Unmatched Experience and a Worldwide Presence:

Founded in 1997, over 4 Billion+ Contactsand counting Worldwide Presence: Los Angeles, London, Buenos Aires, Irvine

Market Leading Intelligence Response Technologies

Emerios Response Services database and response platform ensures superior customer experience Storied history of innovation and development

About me
Love technology in general, self-taught. With a Digital electronics background, I equally enjoy writing code and building stuff (computers, networks, etc.) 30 years as a software developer
Thats true. Im 42 and wrote my first program (a text version of Luna Lander) when I was 12, using a Casio programmable calculator.

17 years as Project/Team Leader 15 years as Software Architect 10 years as CTO / Chief Architect Microsoft Certifications: MCSE / MCSD / MCT Some projects leaded: Renault Argentina Extranet Licitaciones, ISP Ciudad Digital, Proyecto Middleware TERNIUM.

SaaS == Software as a Service

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SaaS Software as a service, or "on-demand software," is a software delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally (typically in a public or private cloud) and are typically accessed by users using a thin client, normally a web browser over the Internet.

PaaS == Platform as a Service

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PaaS Platform as a service (PaaS) is the delivery of a computing platform and solution stack as a service. PaaS offerings facilitate deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software and provisioning hosting capabilities, providing all of the facilities required to support the complete life cycle of building and delivering web applications and services entirely available from the Internet. PaaS offerings may include facilities for application design, application development, testing, deployment and hosting as well as application services such as team collaboration, web service integration and marshaling, database integration, security, scalability, storage, persistence, state management, application versioning, application instrumentation and developer community facilitation. These services may be provisioned as an integrated solution over the web.

SaaS vs PaaS? SaaS: focus on providing application services to solve ONE vertical industry problem. PaaS: focus on providing platform services to build any application for any industry.

SaaS PaaS?
Building a PaaS solution might be more complex and harder. Becoming a PaaS provider is not the natural evolution step for all SaaS providers. Is just an strategic business decision based on what you want to be.

SaaS == PaaS? Multi-tenancy Scalability Fault-tolerance Configurability & extensibility: optional for SaaS, mandatory for PaaS

Our SaaS Solution

Emerios 1.0
Real-Time Customer Verification and Response
End-to-end multi-channel Enrollment processes. Vmbc verifies name, address, social security number, phone number, tax information, email address and desired outcomes of customer. VMBC requests communication preferences from customer in order to understand the method by which they prefer a response. After verification, Vmbc responds with appropriate forms, instructions and requirements in order to service the customer VMBC follows up to ensure the customer has responded with all necessary documentation necessary to qualify for the service. If the enrollment business process includes periodic verification, vmbc manages that as well.

Lifeline Enrollment Timeline

Q3-Y2009 Q2-Y2009 Q1-Y2009
-Fraud rules -BackOffice -CSR Notes -Rejection reasons -Process Versioning & deploy -LexisNexis -BackOffice -Update info -De-Enroll -FCC Audit -Verification

New States
Alabama West Virginia New Jersey Connecticut New Hampshire DC Ohio Wisconsin

Q4-Y2008
Q3-Y2008

New States Illinois

#Reqs:1059

-Multi language

New States
New York Pennsylvania Michigan North Carolina Delaware

Initial Release
New States Tennessee Florida

New States
Virginia Georgia Massachusetts

#Reqs:794

#Reqs:595

#Reqs:281 #Reqs:608

A History of Success!

SafeLink Enrollment
Outstanding achievement
Less than 4 months from final PDD to production release after UAT in August, 2008.

Definition, development and rollout of 7 states in less than 4 weeks (AL, CT, DC, NH, NJ, OH, WI, WV) on June 2009. An average of 1 State every 4 days.
Less than 12 weeks to design, develop, test and release the customizable Fraud Prevention Engine through LexisNexis Validation rules. Released in July, 2009.

SafeLink Enrollment
Applications Received Applications Active Phones Shipped In Process Public site daily visits: New Enrollments per day: Phone calls processed per day: Documents processed per day: 8,646,325 4,334,443 6,364,266 ~50K ~260K ~10K ~30K ~5,000

Development Platform & Tools

.NET based Team Foundation Server / Team Build Visual Studio 2010 - .NET 4 ASP.NET, MVC, Ajax, WCF, WPF, WF Silverlight 3.0 Enterprise Library 4.x WS-Federation, Identity Framework Retina.NET 2.0 OR/M Others: ABCPdf, Moq, Selenium

Emerios 1.0 Platform

Private Cloud with two redundant Data Centers Operating System
Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 Microsoft Hyper-V 2.0 IIS, MSMQ, NLB, Active Directory

Database: MS SQL Server 2008 x64

IVR Services: Speech Server 2007 x64

Supporting Services: TMG 2010, SUS, System Center 2007

Storage: 2x SAN Dell Storage: 45 Disks 450Gb 15K (20Tb Raw)

SafeLink Enrollment
New Enrollments by day
16000 14000 12000 10000 8000 Count 6000 4000 2000 0 Poly. (Count)

Daily Average: 9,599 Total: 2,401,483 Maximum: 13,910

SafeLink Enrollment
Public site daily visits
450,000 400,000
350,000

Daily Average: 266,521 Maximum: 386,707

300,000 250,000 200,000 150,000 100,000 50,000 0 Page Views Poly. (Page Views)

SafeLink Enrollment
Phone calls processed by day
60000 50000

40000

Daily Average: 30,579 Total: 6,988,123 Maximum: 42,050

Calls Poly. (Calls)

30000

20000

10000

Emerios 1.0 System Block Diagram

Enrollment System Corporative Services
Web public CSR User Admin User Public Calls Mail - Fax 3rd Parties

SSL

SSL

STS Public Web Site

STS CSR Web Site

STS Admin Web Site IVR FormRequest

SSL

Security Token Service (STS)

STS Enrollment Integration Web Faade

CRM Manager

Enrollment Service

WorkFlow Manager

Principal

DDBB

Mirror

Staging

Address Validation

Workflow ServIce

CRM

Our Pain Points

Development life cycle for content changes
Implemented a CMS (Sitefinity 4.x)

New Release Deployments

Custom tool on top of MSDeploy

Storage IOPS vs. effective space

Monitor usage patterns to keep optimizing things Database monitoring & tuning Partitioning / Sharding

Our Pain Points

Server Memory consumption
Server role consolidation (POD strategy) Memory usage optimization Shared caching strategies (Velocity)

Data replication
Settled down on SQL Mirroring

Production Monitoring & Diagnostics

Mix of System Center and custom tools (performance counters, Http Trace, self-diagnostics, etc)

Our PaaS Solution

On top of all that, we then focused on the business part of our requirements:
How hard is to add new functionality or change something existing in a system? How easy we could create a new solution for a completely new industry? How fast and easy we could deploy a new instance of a system for a new customer?

Motivation
Enrollment System (Emerios 1.0) limitations:
Designed for the implementation of clients Lifeline government programs Customizations require extensive knowledge of the code and the development environment -> long lead times for the execution of changes requested by clients No economy of scale to maintain and support development of new features for new customers

Motivation
Emerios 2.0 must entice the market through a powerful, graphic User Interface that provides end-to-end customization of processes and workflows that are not limited to one industry.
In order to improve the value of Emerios, create business opportunities and get more clients on the platform, the solution must be dynamic and easily customizable by nondeveloper team members.

Motivation
Typical Requirements Lifecycle with Emerios 1.0 :
Customer Sign Off

2 weeks

Customer Sign Off

Product Development
Requirements gathering and definition

Product Backlog

Development

Quality Assurance

Deployment to PRE
For User Acceptance Tests

Deployment to PROD

Requirements prioritization

Motivation
Requirements lifecycle with Emerios 2.0:
Customer Sign Off Customer Sign Off

Product Change Development Implemented in PRE

Requirements gathering and definition For User Acceptance Tests

Deployment to PROD

Business Analysts are able to capture business requirements and execute their design models as working applications -> no more ultradetailed documents to be interpreted by developers and testers

Motivation
An example of module-based development on Emerios 2.0:
Billing Module Finance Module

Emerios 2.0 Core

Qualification Module

Billing Module

Emerios 2.0 Core

Data Validation Module

Data Validation Module Qualification Module

A new Financial Module is added to the existing Qualification, Billing and Data Validation modules.

Research
With the aim at learning from existing model-oriented platforms, the following products were analyzed:
Salesforce Mendix Outsystems Agile

Research - Salesforce
What we liked:
Rich business entity definitions Formula-based fields and field validations supported Automatic CRUD forms for business entities Business model published as a web service (API) Common business entitiy aspects (notes, attachments, etc.) Modular Extensibility Approval Templates (Mail, Web forms) Business Model testing support Integrated public UI and reporting Module Market (like the AppStore)

Research - Salesforce
What we did not like:
Propietary extensibility language (Apex) Form-based configuration tools (as opposed to point-and-click and dragand-drop UIs) Configuration tools oriented to business developers (with some degree of programming skills) Web-based tools with poor user experience (i.e. no intellisense, HTML source code editing, etc.) Workflows do not enable the definition of operations, just rules

Research - Mendix
What we liked:
A basic application can be developed in less than 5 minutes Workflows can invoke other workflows Document Templates (same as Emerios Enrollment System's generated PDF forms) Business Model Versioning Business model published as a web service (API) API with multiple entity formats (JSON, XML, Java native), and multiple hosting protocols (HTTP, Web Services, Java native) Both Cloud and On-premises hosting supported Modular Extensibility Module Market (like the AppStore) Integration with SAP

Research - Mendix
What we did not like:
Only Java extensibility supported (our know how is .NET-based) On-premises hosting using Java technologies only (our know how is based on Microsoft technologies) Configuration tools are Desktop-only Business Entity Modeling using complex UML notation

Research - Outsystems Agile

What we liked:
A basic application can be developed in less than 5 minutes Configuration tools with outstanding user experience, oriented to nontechnical users Workflows for site navigation Integrated public UI, reporting and performance KPI. Business Model Versioning with 1-click deploy and 1-click rollback Business data and Business Entity definitions can be imported from Excel Application Templates (with predefined functionality for common business models) Supports multiple platforms and languages (.NET / Java) Automated deploy and rollback Modular Extensibility Both Cloud and On-premises hosting supported

Research - Outsystems Agile

What we did not like:
Configuration tools are Desktop-only Requires platform services side-by-side with business services (when hosted on-premises)

Research - Comparative
Salesforce
Modelling Interface Web site with form-based UI Desktop App (Visual Studio alike) Desktop App

Mendix

Outsystems Agile
Desktop App (excellent UX)

BUSINESS MODEL Entities Workflows Triggers/Events Business Rules User Interface Versioning Extensibility 1-Click Deploy 1-Click Rollback ARCHITECTURE Cloud Hosting On-premise Hosting Fault-Tolerance

Form-based
Form-based Form-based Expression editor (textual DSL) Raw custom-HTML editor / Visual Force Desktop editor Supported Apex propietary programming language Supported

UML class diagram / Entity-relation model Workflow Designer Special Workflow DSL Form editor Supported Java Supported

Entity list (can be imported form Excel) Workflow Designer Workflows Form editor + Workflow for navigation Supported .NET / Java Supported Supported (what about data changes?) Supported Supported

Reporting

Supported Not-supported They claim they don't have singlepoints-of-failure (this means full redundancy on every layer) Integrated reports (web UI) Full audit of data changes

Supported Supported

Integrated reports

Integrated reports Automatic performance KPIs

Research Conclusions
Building Emerios 2.0 as an application platform, with almost the same functionality as the ones analyzed, would demand a great effort, thus a project of several months.
However, Emerios 2.0 cannot wait so much time to enter the market, which leads to evaluate the following possibilities:
Buy approach: use an existing platform, taking full advantage of every aspect that it has out-of-the box, and focus on building those modules whose business Emerios knows well and has experience on. Incremental Build approach: build a minimal core that can execute business models coming from different sources (code, workflow, database, etc.), using coded processes in a first stage (fastest to build and do not require a user interface), and then, in future stages, include other types of business model configuration tools (that a business analyst could use to replace every coded process).

Research Conclusions
Buy Approach

Pros Best time-to-market. Proven technology and architecture. The most cost-effective: Analysis, Development, Test, IT costs demanded when building a new product. Maintenance costs.

Cons Less flexible (it might be impossible to extend beyond the current scope of the platform and we cannot assess this until faced with the platform limitations vs. business requirements). Worse fit to the business (generic solutions might not be able to fit the business model as tightly as a custom solution could). Startup cost (after buying the product, we might need to write lots of business modules to fit our current business model). Learning curve. Security requirements might restrict the tool selection.

Build Approach

Pros Best flexibility (there are no platform limits; we could always extend our kernel to accomplish anything, no matter how complex). Best business modeling accuracy (we could model only which is necessary for the business, without the overhead of writing generic modules we do not really know we will need).

Cons More time-to-market to come up with a polished product (Salesforce has more than two years of improvement over a working platform). Need to build and integrate the modeling tools (business entities, business processes, etc.).

Emerios 2.0 Product Vision

The Emerios 2.0 solution is a highly configurable business modeling platform that can host multiple business models at the same time, providing an API to interact with external systems.

Emerios 2.0 Business Models

Emerios 2.0 is centered on Business Models, typically consisting of:
Business Entity Definitions: a description of the data involved in the business (e.g. products, purchase orders, enrollments, customers, etc.). Business Processes: the operations involved in the business (e.g. purchase product, list products, create enrollment, etc.). These can be executed by direct execution, an event/trigger firing or scheduling. Business Events/Triggers: can be seen as part of the business process definition, but important enough to be noteworthy. They provide support for asynchronous interactions (system or human based) and provide a way to connect and reuse business processes.

Emerios 2.0 Business Models

At design time Business Analysts create or maintain Business Models using the Emerios 2.0 Modeling Tools. Those Business Models are stored in an internal database known as the Business Model Database.

Emerios 2.0 Business Models

At run time, the Emerios 2.0 Runtime Engine loads Business Models, from the Business Model Database, and exposes Business APIs that can be used by external sites and services to interact with the Business Models. As a result of interaction with the Business Models through the API, business data is created, updated or deleted within the Business Data Database.
For example, a Customer might browse a product catalog online and purchase a product. Afterwards, he might call an IVR to check the status of his purchase order.

For example, when a customer purchases some products, the stock of those products is reduced and a new purchase order is created. This business data is stored in the Business Data Database.

Emerios 2.0 Modeling Tools

Business Analysts are the main users of Emerios 2.0 Modeling Tools. These tools enable them to model a specific business, which includes the definition of:
The Client whose business is being modeled The Application to be hosted on Emerios 2.0 platform Billable Items that will be part of the client/application billing Business Entities, to store the data involved in the business Business Processes, to model the behavior of business operations Web Portals that will act as points of entrance to the application hosted on Emerios 2.0 platform Security for the application hosted on Emerios 2.0 platform Reports on business data and operations Data transfer between Emerios and the clients system

Emerios 2.0 Modules

Emerios 2.0 supports extensibility and configurability through a modular architecture. A Module is a logical grouping of components that provide a specific functionality by integrating with external services and/or extending other Emerios 2.0 modules. Emerios 2.0 Modules:
Can be enabled and disabled on a per-tenant basis without the need to deploy or restart services. Extend both the design-time and the run-time aspects of Emerios 2.0. Could be developed in-house or by third-party development teams.

The Emerios 2.0 Core is the set of essential built-in Modules that are always available for any Business Model of any tenant.
Our Emerios 2.0 Standard Module Library built on top of our Core will provide additional functionality like: Security (authentication, authorization, data encryption), Auditing, Logging, etc.

Emerios 2.0 Architecture

Business Modules
DES DEEP
Emerios Core Services

Security

Emerios Standard Modules

CRM Enrollment Admin

Dynamic Reporting Engine

Dynamic Data Exchange

Emerios Core Modules

Workflow Metadata Data Access Audit

Multi-Tenant Database Storage

OLTP DWH Staging

CMS

Emerios 2.0 Core

Metadata Module Describe Business Entities (e.g.: products have price, sku, etc.) Process Module Create, Read, Update and Delete Business Processes (e.g.: purchase products)

Data Module Create, Read, Update and Delete Business Entities (e.g.: products) REST API Module Expose business processes through HTTP REST (e.g.: to be consumed by light iPhone applications) Other Modules Examples Address Validation Enrollment Lifeline Customer Identity Validation (LexisNexis) SOAP API Module Expose business processes as SOAP Web Services (e.g.: to be consumed by ETCs workflows)

Case Study: E-Commerce

Emerios 2.0 Modeling Tools
Business Entities Business Processes

(*) Provided by a Customers Module

Case Study: E-Commerce

Emerios 2.0 In a Nutshell

Emerios 2.0 is centered on Business Models. A Business Model is a software representation of a real-world business. The Emerios 2.0 Modeling Tools are a set of tools used by Business Analysts to create and maintain Business Models at design-time. Business Models define entities, processes, events and additional configuration (security permissions & roles, for example) , which are stored in the Business Model Database. The Emerios 2.0 Runtime Engine loads Business Models from the Business Model Database and exposes Business APIs for those models. Customer-facing apps such as Web Sites, IVRs, etc. access the Business Model through its Business API. Business data (e.g. products, orders, etc.) is stored in the Business Data Database. A Module is a logical grouping of components that provide a specific functionality by integrating with external services and/or extending other Emerios 2.0 modules. Modules can be enabled and disabled on a per-tenant basis, without the need to deploy or restart services, and extend both the design-time and the run-time aspects of Emerios 2.0. The Emerios 2.0 Core is the set of essential built-in Modules that are always available for any Business Model of any tenant.

Emerios 2.0 Demo

Administration site Process Workflow designer

Learned Lessons
Before building anything, define your business objectives Becoming a PaaS solution provider is not the natural (and mandatory) evolution step after SaaS It might be, if you are worried by the economies of scale of your potential business and projects There are a lot of architectural and technical challenges in any SaaS and PaaS solution. PaaS adds on top of SaaS the ability to define and build completely new applications We focused on business processes as the way to express and build applications by non-technical users Put usability and accountability as top priorities

Learned Lessons
Keep It Simple (KISS principle) Do performance Testing Early in the process
Unit test / micro testing Stress test Load test Long duration tests Resource consumption

Think about production monitoring and debugging Think about reporting and data integration

Andrs G. Vettori, CTO andres.vettori@vmbc.com