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TechKnowSurge Catalog Videos Software as a Service (SaaS)
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Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software as a Service (SaaS) delivers cloud-hosted applications through a web browser, eliminating the need for local installation, maintenance, or updates. Key advantages include reduced management overhead, enhanced accessibility, easier collaboration, and straightforward scalability.

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About this video

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a cloud-based delivery model that makes applications available through a standard web browser, removing the requirement to install or maintain software locally. The provider hosts the application in the cloud and assumes full responsibility for infrastructure management, software updates, and patching. From a user perspective, the experience closely mirrors that of a locally installed application — the same core features and functionality are available — but the underlying operational burden is shifted entirely to the provider. Microsoft 365 accessed through a browser is a common real-world example, offering familiar productivity tools without any local deployment or upkeep. The operational advantages of SaaS are significant. Dedicated provider teams handle ongoing maintenance and security hardening, which can result in a more consistently updated and professionally secured environment than many organizations could maintain internally. Accessibility is another key benefit — because the software lives in the cloud, it can be reached from any internet-connected device, supporting remote work and frequent travel without requiring a specific machine. Collaboration is also enhanced, as multiple users can access and work within the same application and shared files simultaneously, something that is far more difficult to achieve with software installed on individual workstations. SaaS also offers a more flexible path to scaling. Expanding capacity generally involves purchasing additional licensing rather than investing in new hardware or re-architecting an on-premises environment. However, organizations should carefully evaluate the trade-offs, particularly around security. Relying on a third-party provider means ceding direct control over how the application and its data are protected, making provider due diligence and a clear understanding of shared responsibility models essential components of any SaaS adoption decision.

What you'll learn

What's covered

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Aligned to

CompTIA Tech+
3.4 Explain methods of application architecture and delivery models.
3.3 Explain the purpose and proper use of software.
CompTIA A+ Core 1
4.1 Summarize cloud-computing concepts.
CompTIA A+ Core 2
1.7 Given a scenario, apply application installation and configuration concepts.

Key terms

Software as a Service
SaaS
A cloud service model that delivers software applications over the internet on a subscription basis.
Cloud Computing
The delivery of computing services including servers, storage, and software over the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Scalability
The ability of a system to handle increased load by adding resources without degrading performance.
Accessibility
The ability to access software or services from any location or device with an internet connection, without being tied to a specific machine.
Manageability
The ease with which a system or application can be monitored, maintained, updated, and administered; cloud service models like SaaS shift much of this responsibility to the provider, reducing the workload on the customer's IT team.
Shared Security Responsibility
A model in which security duties are divided between the cloud service provider and the customer, with the provider securing the application infrastructure and the customer responsible for their own usage and data.

Topics

Saas Cloud Computing Cloud Service Models Cloud Deployment Shared Responsibility Model

Transcript

What Software as a Service Is

Software as a service is software we don't have to install on the local machine or the local server. We don't have to go and manage all of the ins and outs of the software itself. All we have to do is utilize the software, because it's hosted up in the cloud and somebody else is doing the management of the software itself. So it's a good option to go in many cases.

I think the best way to cover what software as a service is is just to show you. What I have open here is Microsoft Word. This is a locally installed program. It behaves and acts just like any other program that I have on this machine, where I can move the window around. I have Insert, Draw, Design; I've got the file menus here. So it's just like a regular program.

What I have right here is Microsoft Word as well, and I have a lot of the same menu items up here, but the difference is that I'm actually accessing it through a web browser. So it's not a locally installed program. I don't have to manage the program itself, I don't have to do updates to the program itself, but I can still utilize a lot of the same features and a lot of the same stuff right here, and everything gets saved up into the cloud. In fact, I can have many different programs here — you can see the different programs that are in here and that I can utilize.

So this is an example of software as a service. This is software. It's the same Microsoft Word, or it's a little different, but it's software that's up in the cloud that I can utilize through a web page.

Advantages of Software as a Service

What are some of the advantages of software as a service?

For one, the manageability of it. There are teams of people that are managing the stuff up in the cloud, that are making sure that things are rolled out correctly, making sure the updates are done on it. If it's all done up in the cloud, that means that me and my team don't have to do that, and so it could be very efficient for it to be sent up in the cloud and have them do it instead of my team or I.

Because of that, there's also the security level of it. If you've got people who know what they're doing, who know how to secure the application, it can really make things more secure. The flip side is that you're relying on their security rather than your in-house security. So there are pros and cons to all of these, really.

There's also the accessibility — being able to access this from anywhere. If you're doing a lot of traveling, if it's up in the cloud, being able to access it is great. You don't have to be right there on your desktop, on your laptop, on your machine in order to access it.

For that reason, there's also a lot of collaboration that can happen as well when things are up in the cloud. Generally speaking, a lot of people can get access to it at any time, and so a lot of collaboration can happen when it's up in the cloud, rather than that software sitting on your individual machine.

It also makes it more scalable. It's just a matter of maybe buying more licensing to be able to scale up, versus if you're setting up a server in-house and you've got software installed on it, then you might need to buy more hardware, you might need to buy more software in order to scale that. So scalability is a concern when you have something hosted internally versus hosting it up in the cloud.

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