Just like performance race cars built from the ground up with a single function in mind, appliances provide an integrated, tuned solution optimized for a single purpose. In the case of Socialtext, our appliances are tuned for deploying collaborative applications using wiki technology. The purpose-built nature of appliances provides significant benefits from a stability, ease-of-use, security, as well as long-term cost of ownership perspective. Here's some key reasons why appliances, like the Socialtext solution, are good:
* *Reliability & performance optimizations* - Appliances have by nature a purpose-built design. There are numerous examples in the high-tech industry --- Junipers' Netscreen appliances optimized the firewall function, NetApp optimized storage and file services, and Cisco optimized routing. Significant work is done by Socialtext engineering to select underlying OS, server hardware and storage components to yield the best possible reliability and performance for the Socialtext wiki appliance. Similar work is done to tune and optimize the whole solution to work well together. Compared to approaches where a wiki software-only application is deployed on a general-purpose OS and integrated with off-the-shelf hardware and storage, the Socialtext appliance offers far superior reliability and performance. This translates into more concurrent users, more responsive publishing and collaboration functions, faster searching, and other customer benefits.
* *Security hardening* --- As part of the process for integrating the appliance, Socialtext pre-hardens the entire solution against traditional security vulnerabilities. Socialtext also has complete visibility over its appliance - from the software components to the OS to the hardware - so future security risks can be more quickly identified and remediated with the customer. In comparison, software-only packages deployed on a general-purpose OS (ie. Windows or UNIX) require the IT administrator to modify the OS to turn off ports and disable services during setup to prevent common vulnerabilities. With general-purpose software, IT may also need to go through a regular process of updating the different components (ie. web server, database) as vulnerabilities are discovered and patches are made available. Many of these security vulnerabilities will be left in the hands of the IT administrator to discover, since the software-only wiki vendors would have no visibility on the underlying components the customer may be using in their specific deployment. The Socialtext appliance form factor removes this time consuming process for IT and provides an immediate baseline level of security against exploits. Furthermore, since Socialtext appliances are available with managed and hosted service options, customers can be confident any new security issues are quickly and thoroughly addressed through automatic updates.
* *Easier to deploy, manage & upgrade* --- When a customer orders a Socialtext appliance, they get a complete solution that is up and running in minutes, so they can immediately start using wikis to foster collaboration, build online communities or facilitate knowledge sharing. In comparison, deploying a software-only wiki solution requires significant IT resource to setup the OS, configure the server hardware, integrate storage, and then add the actual wiki application components. These steps just on the application side might include installing various packages, patching and upgrading, as well as tuning. Not only can the Socialtext appliance be up and running more quickly, but over time the effort required to manage and maintain an integrated appliance solution is much lower than with a software-only solution deployed on general-purpose hardware.
* *Single-source solution* --- When considering an appliance versus software-only solutions for wikis, customers will quickly realize that integrated appliances provide a complete solution that also makes a single vendor accountable for the whole solution working well together. From a support standpoint, this gives the appliance customer the proverbial 'one throat to choke' for all support issues that come up related to their wiki deployment. In comparison, when evaluating support with a software-only wiki, customers will find that they will inevitably have to deal with multiple vendors for full support of their solution. This might include one support resource on the wiki application software, another contact for the server hardware and OS components, and maybe a third for storage-related issues. The complexity around support for software-only issues not only lengthens the amount of time for issues getting resolved and creates headaches for IT staff, but also in some instances creates 'finger pointing' between vendors assigning blame for the support issue. Lastly, the multi-vendor approach to support often translates into higher costs, since the customer will need to renew their contract for updates, patches as well as technical phone/email support (typically between 15-20% per year) with multiple vendors and not get to consolidate this cost and related discounts with a single vendor. The Socialtext appliance provides a complete wiki solution and a corresponding single vendor to address all support and maintenance issues.
* *Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)* --- All of these differences between appliances and software-only solutions translate into cost of ownership impact to a business customer. If a solution is less reliable, then this reduces its effectiveness, its users' productivity and creates costs related to bolstering the reliability (ie. adding more hardware) or addressing downtime or disaster recovery. If a solution does not offer security-hardening out of the box, then there is a cost impact for hardening the solution or adding third-party components to bolster security. Of course if a solution requires more IT staffing, technical expertise and time to be spent to keep it up and running, then this will also translate into cost impact. And finally, if the support of the solution is complex and requires interactions with multiple vendors, then this further drives up costs (ie. professional services or integration costs). The Socialtext appliance approach addresses all of this --- providing a fast, reliable and secure wiki solution that is easy to deploy and manage, plus delivered as a single-source solution from one vendor. This translates for business customers into a leading solution that is not only the best wiki solution available on the market from a feature standpoint, but also one that is the most cost-effective over the long-term.
Leave a comment