NEC’s SaaS Aggregation Platform is designed for operators and service providers. We have thought beyond simply providing a platform to our customers and have our own SaaS service delivery solution, named Applications Net, which comprises a solid cloud computing SaaS aggregation and management platform at its core.
Our platform is purpose built to supply ingestion, management and delivery of SaaS services for your customers, ensuring that we deliver a low risk, seamlessly integrated solution for your business.
NEC has a holistic approach to delivering solutions to our customers. Our extensive experience delivering integrated network, ICT and SaaS solutions establishes us as a vendor with the expertise to make your SaaS business a reality.
At a glance:
- one stop Saas applications store for your customers
- fully customisable
- simple monthly pay per use model
- rapid service delivery
- secure hosted environment
- carrier grade performance.
SaaS is increasingly becoming the preferred method for delivery of business applications to end-users.
Applications Net has been providing a wide range of applications targeting businesses since November 2008.
This experience has provided NEC a number of insights into SaaS service delivery such as business know-how, ISV selection and ingestion, marketing and sales, and the challenges of managing and enabling resellers. This know-how gives NEC an advantage over our competitors and you a smooth and proven entry into the market.
SaaS offers a number of distinct advantages for end users, ranging from:
- the simple monthly pay per use model
- increased business computing capability and mobility
- service expansion and contract flexibility
- the benefits of business continuity in the event of a disaster.
NEC’s approach to SaaS is to deliver a holistic approach to our customers that starts with support during the business modelling and planning phase, and follows you through all the stages of building your SaaS solution including product ingestion and launch.
Applications store
Our SaaS offering is ‘a one-stop SaaS application store’ which supports a wide range of software and business applications targeted to the SME market. From our simple to use Marketplace portal, your customers will be able to browse, trial, subscribe, and then also consume their purchased SaaS applications directly.
Independent vendor selection
Our involvement does not stop there; NEC continues to support and advise your business after launch and can assist you in various ways such as Independent Software Vendor (ISV) selection. Leveraging our business experience in delivering SaaS across three continents, NEC can help you deliver a successful SaaS solution.
Seamless and rapid
As with any web based service delivery, SaaS deployment for any provider needs to be fast. With NEC’s carrier systems integration experience and flexible orchestration layer, integration with your existing platforms (such as OSS, BSS,Billing, CRM, Authentication, SDP etc.) will be both seamless and rapid.
ISV integration
Furthermore, NEC can support carriers’ partnerships with application vendors in order to expand service portfolio in line with customer strategic needs. NEC’s Rapid ISV Accelerator Program fast tracks ISV integration through use of a clever self-service developer community site, simulation tools and integration wizards. This program ensures a painless and super fast integration of 3rd party application providers into your marketplace.
The following is a summary description of each layer in the Solution Architecture.
Marketplace layer
The Marketplace layer is the applications store-front for end customers. The Marketplace provides a portal for customers to allow them to browse and find out more about your offered SaaS products, purchase their desired products and then utilise their purchased products. NEC’s Marketplace supports multiple user roles including company administration, company users, direct public users and a salesperson or reseller role.
The look and feel of the Marketplace is fully customisable and is Content Management System (CMS) based allowing simple updates to be accomplished easily. Contracting through the Marketplace is through a simple shopping cart payment gateway that can be integrated to a third party payment broker or directly into your billing system.
Not simply a front end store, NEC’s Marketplace solution also supports variety of add-on features such as the promotion module that realises a range of flexible promotion and billing options. Operational tools such as reporting allow you the operator to monitor a range of statistics including service usage statistics for both applications and users.
Integration layer
SynerboSpace SaaS Aggregation Platform is the core system that provides the SaaS applications and subscription management, real-time provisioning and ISV management. SynerboSpace SaaS Aggregation Platform consists of several separate modules including the billing proxy, identity access and management via a single sign on proxy, ISV Management module, NEC’s proprietary Rapid ISV Accelerator service ingestion module and various systems administration and monitoring modules.
SynerboSpace SaaS Aggregation Platform layer
NEC’s integration and orchestration layer consists of a flexible WebServices based architecture between NEC’s platform and ISVs and between NEC’s platform and your core network components, to simplify and ensure a rapid integration. Key to the success of any new product launch, rapid integration can give you a head-start on your competitors.
Hosting layer
NEC’s hosting layer provides a secure environment for the hosting of ISVs. The hosting platform utilises a virtualisation framework to ensure carrier-grade performance for the ISVs whilst also maximising usage within the host data centre. The virtual environment can host either Linux or Windows operating systems and diverse middleware as required by the individual application. The hosting environment is based on a robust and scalable architecture that provides a fully redundant high availability solution with the very best in back-up protection.