Problems faced with traditional software

Traditional software has been delivered to customers on media ranging from floppys to DVDs. The software likely relies on other third-party components - such as a database, an operating system, an application server etc. All of these components must be installed properly and interact correctly for the application to run effectively.

The customer is forced to work independently or with the software vendor to specify, size, acquire, install, configure, tune, maintain, and manage the hardware systems that will be hosting the software solution. This complexity often leads to long deployment times, as well as high maintenance costs and no help is available in the ongoing operational support of the software system.

Traditional software delivery requires customers to procure the hardware platform separately while the software vendors have to support a wide variety of hardware configurations and operating systems.

Reduce cost & complexities and simplify maintenance with a Software Appliance

A software appliance is a software application combined with just enough operating system (JeOS)for it to run optimally on industry standard hardware (typically a server) or in a virtual machine. - Wikipedia

A software appliance is a self-contained package that includes the application, any third-party components and just enough operating system (JeOS) for it to run properly. The bundled appliance can be installed easily onto any commodity hardware and runs flawlessly because it has no need for an underlying operating system
or related third-party components.

Advantages of a software appliance

Cut Out the Operating System

One of the biggest contributors to software complexity is the monolithic operating system.Most applications dont need that all the functionality of the OS to function properly. The complexity of the operating systems means that a small chnage in one area can affect business applications running on them and cause tremendous downtime.

The software appliance comes with a slimmed down version of an operating system required to run the application and any third party components in the appliance. The appliance is fine tuned to run in that environment giving higher performance than any application running on a general purpose OS.

Simplify Maintenance

With so many third party components in software applicaitons, conflicts among them are inevitable. Vendors can try to keep pace with one another, but each vendor has its own release schedule, so the myriad of combinations of versions is impossible to manage. Your IT department probably can't keep track of the multiple component versions either, and instead may proscribe a narrow set of system requirements for what they will support, limiting your choices.

Software appliances make it possible to insulate the application from the surrounding system. Since all the components in a software appliance are packaged together, they are already tested and proven to work harmoniously. The software appliance vendor takes responsibility for managing the complex interactions freeing your IT staff from this hassle.

The software appliance update process is handled between a secured server at your vendor's site and your software appliance. You can configure how and when you want your appliance to accept updates. If something doesn't work, you can easily roll-back to a previous version of the appliance, with no harm done. You're not bound by someone else's schedule, nor are you affected by the influence of larger and more vocal customers on your vendor.

Maximize Limited IT Resources

A software appliance is ideal for overworked IT departments because it relieves them of the complex management activities associated with running applications. If IT staff are freed from application or operating system troubleshooting, they'll have more time for other user support or strategic issues. In particular, software appliances provide:

• Simple installation and configuration: Because software appliances contain only the components they need, they tend to be smaller and more compact than typical applications. It takes only a short time to install the system image onto your chosen hardware or in a virtual machine and to do initial configurations.
• Higher software reliability: The components in a software appliance are all specifically tested together. This eliminates any guesswork on the part of the vendor about whether one component should work with a particular version of another component. This dramatically increases the reliability of the software appliance and reduces the burden on IT caused by component conflicts.
• Reduced need for support: Simple management and higher reliability all contribute to a reduced need for support from the vendor. While this might sound more like a benefit for the vendor, it is also a time-saver for you. Because all the pieces work, your IT staff won't need to spend hours on the phone with the vendor to troubleshoot issues.

Reduce Patching and Increase Security