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Types of services that would help to mitigate against the risk of SaaS supplier failure

Kemp Little Consulting and NNC Group look at SaaS Assurance Our previous post, described some of the issues end users would face if a provider of… Read more

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Kemp Little Consulting and NNC Group look at SaaS Assurance

Our previous post, described some of the issues end users would face if a provider of business process or data critical SaaS applications failed. Here we set out the service framework designed alongside NCC Group to help customers using SaaS and their providers benefit from appropriate continuity solutions.

Figure 1 shows the types of services that would help to mitigate against the risk of SaaS supplier failure.

Figure 1: Service Model to mitigate against the risk of SaaS Supplier failure

Specific solutions will be dependent upon the nature of the SaaS application and how it is built, how it is being used, business criticality and capabilities in the end user organisation.

Many SaaS solutions are procured as rapid business improvement projects and initially deployed as a pilot where the business risks of failure are low. However, these solutions can often end up being rolled out quite quickly and key parts of the business become dependent upon them by stealth.

It is therefore important for organisations to develop a deep understanding of their SaaS estate and regularly review the risks of supplier failure and put in place appropriate risk mitigation measures.

We put an industry kitemark at the centre of our service model and we then categorise the other solutions into four main areas of risk – service, data, application and knowledge. The kitemark ensures that providers can illustrate independent validation of continuity arrangements; for SaaS customers, it underpins the testing and audit-readiness of failover planning.

Many SaaS providers and their customers are already benefiting from services delivered under the SaaS Assured framework by NCC Group. Utilising this service framework, NCC Group is investing further in configuring its service offerings reflecting market, legal and customer feedback.

We will be discussing the issues surrounding commercial security of Software as a Service at the forthcoming Cloud World Forum in London on 24^th and 25^th June 2015. See the link here for details.

For more information about how to mitigate the risks of SaaS supplier failure, please contact David Turver (Kemp Little Consulting) or Chris Hill (Kemp Little Commercial Team).

You can also find more information on NCC Group’s current SaaS Assured offering here.

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