session, october 2008 echallenges e-2008 copyright 2008 insert org logo in master slide software as...

Session <No>, <Date> October 2008 eChallenges e-2008 Copyright 2008 <Insert org or project name>

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Software as a Service (SaaS) Through a Grid Network: Business and Legal Implications

and Challenges

Davide M. Parrilli

Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and ICT (ICRI), K.U. Leuven, IBBT

Belgium



Motivation, problem area

Provision of SaaS in a Grid environment

• Lack of business and legal models for exploiting Grid technology at its full potential from the various industry sectors: need to fill this gap.

• Is the SaaS delivery paradigm the most promising business model for providing Grid services?

• Business and legal implications must be assessed together: new and original approach.



Research Objectives

• Impact of Grid applications and resources offered with the SaaS model in existing and new markets (investments, market entrance, competition, pricing, etc);

• SLAs: legal assessment and proposal of new legal schemes;

• Other economic issues that need to be taken into account by the new players (network externalities, pricing schemes, incentives etc)

• Legal issues: contractual framework, proprietary rights and licenses, confidentiality and liability.



Research approach, Methodology

• Observation of the findings and experiences achieved in BEinGRID projectBEinGRID project: cross-analysis of 18 real-life Business Experiments, analysis of their business models and exploitation plans as consultants;

• Review of the literatureliterature on the topic: no statistic on the Grid application delivery models used by the industry; lack of legal analysis.



Major Outcomes/Results (I)

• Grid applications should be delivered in a different model from the traditional on-demand one: SaaS should be SaaS should be preferredpreferred (especially by SMEs and home users).

• GridGrid technology is most-of-all seen by the industry as a very promising solution to overcome performance-associated problems at a lower cost than today: the BEs are moving to the SaaS model – higher level of trusttrust gained towards the Grid capabilities such as the SaaS model.

• But…there is still a lot of way to pave through a more global acceptance of the SaaS paradigm for next generation services (including the Grid ones).



Major Outcomes/Results (II)

Benefits of the SaaS model:• New markets and new compound services built

for smaller service components;• Less investments needed by SMEs for software

licenses and/or computational infrastructure: market entrance barriers are reduced – more more competitioncompetition;

• Service providers can expand their customers’ base and product offerings.



Major Outcomes/Results (III)

Furthermore:• Network externalitiesNetwork externalities: each component in the environment

adds value to others and to the whole product: need to create incentives for developers and to share the revenues.

• Pricing schemePricing scheme: necessity to develop new, flexible and dynamic schemes. Also to define a monetary value for resources (the “Grid dollar”): further analysis required.

• SLASLA: the client will require and expect from the Grid a better level of services: limitation of clauses on inoperability, inaccessibility, breakdowns for maintenance or upgrades, more supplier’s liability for congestion of the servers: should SaaS be always available?



Major Outcomes/Results (IV)

Legal issues• The contract that encompasses the SaaS model is, in

general terms, the ASP agreement: the software provider is the owner of the software (asset for the provider, liability for the customer).

• Code provided to the client: in a typical SaaS scenario it will be the object codeobject code rather than the source code.

• Pivotal role of confidentiality obligationsconfidentiality obligations: no disclosure!• LiabilityLiability for non or bad provisioningnon or bad provisioning: the use of the Grid

should reduce the risk, extended burden of liability for the software provider.

• RemediesRemedies: Service Credits, damages, termination of the contract.



Conclusion and outlook

• Clear tendency towards increasingly complicated and rich business scenarios and models as regards SaaS;

• Grid is a very promising technology;• From the legallegal point of view Grid is not neutral: the

provision of SaaS in a Grid environment alters the very content of the SLA and of the ASP agreement (level of service, liability, etc);

• Need to balance the riskbalance the risk (non or bad compliance) between software provider, Grid provider and end user in a new way: the traditional ASP paradigm is not able to encompass all the novel elements typical of a Grid scenario.



Thank you for your attention!

Davide M. Parrilli

Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and ICT (ICRI), K.U. Leuven, IBBT (Belgium)

[email protected]

session, october 2008 echallenges e-2008 copyright 2008 insert org logo in master slide software as...

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