In this respect, the air of caution is most
palpable surrounding ELNs, in which
LIMS without boundaries
primary research records are dealt with. ‘For
R&D organisations, their R&D records are
their most valuable assets,’ comments Jeff
Browser independent
Spitzner, president and chief science officer
at Rescentris. ‘Their whole future intellectual
Database independent
property stake is in these records and so they
want to make sure they retain them.’ He says
that most companies Rescentris talks to are
Hardware independent
not ready to commit to a SaaS solution for
are as a service
electronic records yet. ‘Most are curious, but
tw
are used to keeping data in-house.’
Location independent
Rescentris, a company with headquarters
of
in Columbus, Ohio, providing ELN and
s
scientific content management software,
launched its SaaS ELN solution, eCERF,
in May 2009. One of the reasons for
introducing the SaaS offering was to allow aBove: Screenshot from Sciformatix’s SciliMS, a multitenant liMS application.
fast deployment of pilot projects, as Spitzner
explains: ‘The immediate goal for Rescentris appropriate, which could change over time. very high value applications that will be
in offering its eCERF SaaS solution was to ‘The Amazon Web Services model, for delivered; Thermo Fisher is just taking away
allow groups to try out the product without example, offering cheap computing and the initial capital expense and maintenance
having to install it on their servers. The cheap storage is great for the industry in costs. Thermo Fisher is not approaching this
SaaS option makes it possible to deploy the general and it’s great for ongoing analytical as a way to get LIMS on the cheap, so to
software with virtually no effort and without services short-term data management, speak.’
involving the company’s IT department.’ but I don’t know if anyone is making any The success of Salesforce.com is
But it’s not simply a matter of being able to guarantees that the service will be the right testament to the viability of SaaS and
handle the electronic records; their long- one for secure SaaS hosting five years from while data management solutions differ
term storage is also important. ‘With other now,’ Spitzner continues. to CRM, the software is generally well
kinds of data, such as sales data, there’s no suited to the model, although complex
harm with duplicating it or moving it from future expectations laboratory setups requiring tight integration
system to system as things evolve in the SaaS is still a new concept for data with multiple systems might be less well
industry,’ remarks Spitzner. ‘With electronic management and the switch to working suited to SaaS. ‘The challenge is to have
records, research organisations need to be in the cloud will not happen overnight, certain applications as a SaaS model, other
able to demonstrate chain of custody, in that although many industry experts believe that applications hosted in-house, and be able
they haven’t been tampered with and the
electronic signatures remain in place.’ This
‘the Switch to workinG in the
is especially important when dealing with
billion dollar patent litigations. cloud will not happen overniGht’
Rescentris partnered with data centre
provider, Iron Mountain, a specialist hosting the use of SaaS-based solutions is only going to integrate those applications,’ comments
company that has expertise in setting to increase. ‘If the SaaS model takes hold as Rozlucki of Contur.
up cloud servers. Spitzner explains that expected, it begs the question of why one Rozlucki feels that in the future the issue
Rescentris chose this route rather than would go to the expense of implementing won’t be where the data is hosted, but will
hosting the software themselves, as there LIMS inside the company, especially if it’s boil down to features and functions and
are potential risks with ELN providers a small company,’ states Shah of Thermo usability of the software. ‘As long as there is
hosting the data, in that if the business Fisher, although R&D organisations using a secure and robust platform, then it doesn’t
model changes or the company runs into SaaS-based ELNs might see a need to really matter where the data is hosted.’
financial hardship, the ELN system might migrate the data in-house. Furthermore, Dippolito of DeltaSoft claims
not be maintained. ‘These companies won’t According to Shah, the expectations the majority of professional data hosting
necessarily make any guarantees about the raised by the customer of SaaS offerings services will be actually more secure than
reliability of their hosting services, as it’s will have to be slowly managed over time. maintaining in-house servers. Rozlucki says
not their area of expertise,’ he says. ‘The Expectations of costs in the range of $100 that for the time being, larger companies
advantage with using professional software per user per month – and being able to implementing an ELN will tend to buy their
Results Count
as a service hosting businesses, is that they switch the service on and off as required own servers, but in 10 years time it could be Offices worldwide supporting customers
6
will keep using whatever technologies are – is not practical, he says. ‘These are still a different story.
in more than 70 countries www.labware.com
LIG10 pp04-07 Saas.indd 6 18/11/09 17:34:56
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