Deliver Software as a Service & Online Trials Using Amazon AppStream 2.0 Without Application Rewrite

Key Takeaways

hello and thank you for joining us today for aws tech talk session deliver sas solutions online training trials and demos using amazon app stream 2.0 my name is eddie hanif and i lead the global business development and go to market strategy for amazon app stream 2 for isv segment and i'm very pleased to be joined by sinan serif today sinan is a director of it at multiview financial software to and he will share multiview success story and learnings on how they accelerated their journey to deliver a sas solution for their customers using amazon app stream 2.0 so let's get started we have four session objectives today we'll begin by looking at what are the emerging trends we are seeing in the isv segment and how these trends are motivating isvs and service providers to move to a sas delivery model and modernize their training trial and demo experience for their customers we'll discuss why sas and the value proposition of sas on aws will provide an overview of app stream discuss use cases where isvs are adopting app stream multi-view team will share learnings from their sas journey and lastly will share the list of resources available for you to start your app stream evaluation and deployment isv segment is going through a rapid transformation to move to a sas delivery model we sponsored a forester survey in which 300 isps participated and the survey provided some valuable insights that i would like to share today forester reported that when it comes to software portfolios sas is the largest growing and local on-premise installation is the fastest declining category isvs stated that 81 of their customers expect a sas version of their desktop applications and 83 percent expect their isvs to provide software training and trials in an online format as more customers become comfortable with cloud-based applications and services isvs that sell software are under increased pressure to cloudify their products quickly and they need to make a choice move to a sas solution or they risk their existing customers drift away to cloud native competitors offering features like lower installation costs consumption based pricing and faster rollouts of new features the reason we see sas trend growing is because of the benefits it provides to the software providers and their end customers let's talk about end customer benefits first one of the biggest advantages of the sas delivery model for the end customer is simplified i.t management as the customer does not need to host or maintain the software product instead the product is hosted and maintained and managed by the software provider and the end customer simply accesses the product over the internet when needed as the software is deployed and delivered in the cloud it is easily and readily accessible the system can be set up such that customers can sign up and start using the product with little to no hand holding resulting in frictionless onboarding and shortening time to value and productivity a simplified and frictionless trial experience is one of the key driver of the rapidly growing adoption of sas customers can evaluate the software easily they are completely in control of when and what they buy and when they stop using it and aligning with the trial experience is consumption-based pricing where customers only pay for what they use with no long-term contracts or upfront costs now let's discuss the benefits sas provides to sas providers first development in the cloud significantly reduces the costs and risks of experimentation and innovation which makes rapid innovation possible and much less expensive further agile development with a micro services architecture and continuous releases cuts cycle time and accelerates product releases with a competitive edge isvs are able to move to faster product development cycles and more rapid product releases second software deployed in the cloud can be scaled up or down rapidly and together with the economies of scale offered by aws services and architectures managing customer growth peak times and global expansion is much easier low touch and cost optimized the third benefit is that sas products can provide significant operational efficiencies by leveraging sas concepts such as microservices architecture and serverless implementations which allows high growth products to be highly profitable and last but not least sas products delivered on a subscription model provide a predictable stream of recurring revenue that is valued much higher than one time license fee when executed and managed well migration to the sas delivery model has a definite and positive impact on business growth so why sas on aws what are the advantages of building your sas solution on aws when building sas on aws customers are able to leverage the complete array of aws services which allows them to focus on their core business in a way with more flexibility and deliver with a shorter time to value aws has more services and more features within those services than any other cloud provider by a large amount aws has continuously expanded its services to support virtually any cloud workload and it now has more than 175 fully featured services aws has the largest and most dynamic ecosystem with millions of active customers and tens of thousands of partners globally the aws partner network includes thousands of system integrators who specialize in aws services and tens of thousands of isvs who integrate aws into their products isvs can leverage aws's global presence extensive partner network and compliance programs to reach customers all across the globe in all geographic regions and verticals with unmatched ease so let's talk about sas transformation sas transformation is a journey where an isv transforms their monolithic application associated with a perpetual license procurement business with on-prem delivery to a cloud-based microservices architecture sold in a subscription-based pricing model this transition going from the traditional to modern sas model requires significant efforts on the technical and business front and also requires a cultural shift within the organization our customers tell us that they look at this journey to evaluate and implement a number of additional enhancements such as lowering business costs through infrastructure reduction increasing user scalability through cloud architecture enabling live update functionality expanding client base globally creating a more flexible and diversified offering to meet customer demands and developing a business model to increase their revenue it's not a point in time activity it is a journey so based on based on the learnings from our customers we see isvs go through multiple phases in this journey in the first phase isv or the service provider start looking at cloud to accelerate deployment increase agility and optimize costs to redirect budgets to innovation projects mindset evolves from why should we use cloud 2 why should we not use cloud and isvs develop a business case and pricing model to transform their perpetual license procurement business with on-prem delivery to a sas delivery model this takes them to the launch phase and in the launch phase isvs build test and design the sas components around their application identity web services billing monitoring and operations develop a go-to-market strategy and launch a sas solution they start onboarding new customers to sas this enables isvs to provide their customers immediate support for a sas solution addressing growing business needs as isvs start onboarding new customers to sas they start optimizing their environment and ensure that their deployment is deployed according to cloud best practices in the next phase isu's develop migration plans and they start migrating their existing on-prem customers to sas and continue optimizing their sas environment this really takes them to the modernization phase in the next phase modernization isvs start modernizing their application on modern cloud primitives like container serverless and start adopting advanced services like connect redshift sagemaker pinpoint uh to introduce new compelling features at the end the net goal is that the isb completely reorients their customer experience of software delivery having refactored or developed a multi-tenant architecture using cloud native services like api gateway lambda and so on launch phase is one of the critical stages in this phase the development team designs the cloud architecture and successfully launches a sas solution isvs have multiple choices they can rewrite their application they can refactor their application or do a lift and shift isvs that have a windows desktop application do not have the resources to rebuild their application or need a sas solution asap to address growing customer demand or combat competition can use amazon app stream to launch a sas solution via lift and shift of their desktop application as a first step to their application modernization journey without incurring the overhead of a major application rewrite so let me walk you through what is amazon app stream 2.0 appstream is a fully managed non-persistent application and desktop streaming service um your apps and data are co-located in aws and only encrypted pixels are streamed across the wire each user gets a dedicated app stream instance and never share a virtual machine with other users this means their performance is never affected by other users and you do not run into noisy or noisy neighbor problem users can access the application either by using an html5 browser or windows client application that means an isv that has a windows desktop application can deliver their application in a browser without rewriting their application let's talk about some of the benefits of appstream 2. first of all it's a fully managed service with appstream customers don't need to plan deploy manage or upgrade any application streaming infrastructure launches and manages aws resources to host application and scales the environment up and down to meet customers demand no rewrite of apps is required like i said before appstream enables isvs to deliver windows desktop apps from aws to an html5 browser without application rewrite no downloads or plugins are required meaning app stream provides a scalable and secure foundation to develop a sas solution without rewriting the application applications are available through a web portal and isvs can manage users access and data with app stream 2's built-in features app stream scales on demand app stream allows isvs to scale their environment up or down based on their customers usage patterns isvs can scale their application streaming to any number of users across the globe without acquiring provisioning and operating streaming infrastructure or hardware app stream offers pay-as-you-go pricing app stream pricing is based on user concurrency you only pay for the streaming resources that you use plus a small monthly fee per streaming user there is no upfront investment and no long-term commitments when using amazon app stream 2.0 iecs are able to apply their own branding isvs can customize the appearance of app stream with their own branding images text and website links this helps isvs to display their branding to their customers during the application streaming sessions providing their users a familiar application centric experience flexible hardware types appstream provides a diverse set of app stream instances starting from seven and a half cents per hour for non-graphics and 25 cents per hour for graphic instances this provides isvs and service providers the flexibility to choose the instance type best suited for their application to provide their customers the best experience the service is available in 10 aws regions govcloud in u.s west oregon and north virginia in u.s frankfurt and ireland in europe and singapore sydney tokyo seoul and mumbai in asia this provides isv's ability to stream their application to their customers from the location closest to them providing them the best user experience and expand their customer reach across the globe so let's dive into the use cases where we are seeing adoption from isps the first use case i want to talk about is delivering online training trials and demos let's start with the customer's challenges the traditional model of delivering trial software is cumbersome users have to sign up for trial download the installer go through complex installations and need the right device like gpu for graphic apps to test the software additionally isvs have to do significant operational lift to set up workshops booths or training sessions at sales conferences and training events app stream enables isvs to shorten their sales cycle by streaming demos trials and training of their desktop apps to a browser with no local installs or special hardware requirements users can instantly access training trials and demos from a browser from windows pcs linux pcs macs and chromebooks isbs simply invite prospects to open a link via email and try the application with zero friction for users let me share a few customer examples solidworks is using app stream to deliver online trials globally for their cad design software solidwork cad aviva is using appstream to deliver on-demand self-training platform for their engineering design application aviva everything 3d ptc is using um app stream to provide trial and beta testing for the market leading cad software application creo so we have several isvs who are successfully using amazon app stream to deliver online training trials and demos to their customers the second use case that i want to talk about is sas app stream enables isvs to launch a sas solution for their windows desktop application without rewriting their app for these desktop isvs appstream is really the catalyst to move to aws with the lift and shift as the first step to modernize their application delivery this is a use case where we are seeing strong customer adoption from isvs and service providers let me share a few customer examples multiview based out of canada launched a sas solution for their healthcare erp without rewriting their application change healthcare based out of u.s is using app stream to deliver their analytics solutions platform as a sas offering sage based out of australia launched a sas solution for its software sage handisoft providing practice management solutions for australian tax agents and accountants bytespeed launched class computer lab as a service a sas solution using app stream to deliver desktop applications like adobe creative cloud and autodesk to students all across the us let me take this opportunity and invite sinan to share how multiviews is using amazon app stream 2.0 to transform their on-prem software business to a sas delivery model thank you eddie for the warm welcome and the opportunity for multiview to share our story hello everyone and thank you for your time my name is sinan serif and i am the director of it at multiview financial multiview is an established erp software solution based in ottawa canada we have been in operation for over 30 years throughout which we have honed our traditional erp software offering in the areas of core accounting business insight business automation and inventory management multi multiview can be found in a variety of industries such as health care hospitality oil and gas and finance given the number of years in operation multiview is built as a traditional client server offering by way of a win32 desktop application communicating with a backend application and database server given the nature of the industry's multi-view operates with and within conversation shifted from what we needed to support multi-view from an internal hardware and support structure to what was multi-view's approach and timeline to offering a cloud-based solution if not already in place with no lines to read between it was clear that the traditional client server offering by way of a win32 desktop application would need to be revisited the answer being unknown the question being broad what needs to be done to meet the market demand to that end multi-view embarked on a path to find an answer rebuild or lift and shift many many conversations and twice as much thought have gone into this topic and at the center of it all do we take a product that has been continually built upon and reworked for the past 30 years and rebuild it or do we look for a way to offer that same product through the cloud the key drivers for the co for these conversations were the development effort cost market demand and minimizing the unknowns development effort would be measured more so in years and not months the effort and commitment to retooling business and programmatic logic refactoring and internal skill set development and acquisition being top of mind which led us to cost and more specifically upfront investment what would it cost for multiview to maintain what we already have in the market while we rebuild from scratch is that even an option this led us to the answer for the market demand could we rebuild multiview as a cloud native application without compromising our position in the market and finally the known unknowns is there enough in an understanding of what we need to be as a native cloud offering to make it all happen wrapping up and walking away from our internal exercise it was in concluded that we needed to look for a low code or no code change solution enabling our internal resources to focus on doing what they do best upfront investment it needs to be marginalized to operational activities associated with taking an activity that was commonly and an end customer responsibility the solution would need to be something that would meet the market need now and finally minimize the unknowns the solution would need to have answers for questions we have yet to unearth extensive evaluations and energy were committed in order to identify a path and ultimately a solution to what multiview was looking for carriers of focus for us through the selection revolved around how our existing clients used multiview and users traditionally access multiview through the win32 desktop application given the nature of an erp offering video quality is key being able to move between numerous spreadsheets and screens requires a level of precision which necessitates a responsive mousing keyboard along with file upload and download between local and remote environment facilitating a natural and uncompromising experience for end users along the same lines but more specifically to an erp are such areas as printing and more specifically check form printing this is a specialized area and as such set the bar rather high security given the nature of what is contained in an erp how do we ensure that what is housed within multiview matches and exceeds what clients that have in place currently to meet their regulatory and legal compliance requirements user management what would we typically be a call to an internal support department translate to a service now being administered by multiview and finally scalability how do we add more capacity to what's already in place and more importantly how do we match the demand of the market also worth a note is our selection process was evaluating cost of the service and how those costs align to what current licensing models may already be in place infrastructure management what were the lines in the sand relative to who is accountable and responsible for what and platform maturity we were not just looking for a cloud vendor but looking for a partner through our evaluation we landed on app stream 2.0 which not only checked all the boxes but empowered us to control cost down to the minute just as important as costs is the commitment and support that comes with app stream 2.0 it very much feels like a partnership with fluid and continued conversations and inclusivity with the appstream 2.0 team in our journey to create and manage a cloud offering a few key drivers served as a cornerstone to multi-views efforts firstly aws has a solution and secondly it gives us flexibility to develop this infrastructure with the most flexibility to address operational and security needs of our customers we finalized a business model developed a solution launched a solution went into optimization which led to migration all made possible through an aws apn partner appstream 2.0 helped us launch address customer demand and align internal teams to onboard a sas solution moving into modernization phase sas accelerator operating model partner impact was huge helping us accelerate and enable us to grow as a company and transform our business lessons learned amazon app stream 2.0 can be viewed as not only a stepping stone but also as an operating model for those moving from a traditional client on-premise offering to a sas offering partner communities supported by aws are a force multiplier in matching business need with market demand while supporting modernization activities appstream 2.0 went from solving a market need to becoming the enabler to multiview's transformation and modernization efforts in closing i'd like to take this opportunity to thank eddie and the team at appstream 2.0 for this opportunity to share our story but also for the continued commitment to multiview's journey thank you thank you sinan let me share some of the resources that we have available for you as i mentioned earlier isps use appstream to launch a sas solution as the first step in their application modernization journey and we see these isvs go through multiple stages from business model development to launch to migrate and optimize and then modernize this transition requires significant efforts research and planning on the technical and business front we have proserv and partner resources available for you to engage and help you through each stage of your sas journey starting from envisioning session to launching a sas solution to a full application modernization we have seen several customers successfully launch a full sas solution in less than six months by engaging these partner resources these partner resources are available globally for you to engage this is a detailed view with our partners website link and their offering details and focus geographies where they have delivery capacity i encourage you to review and engage them as you see fit this brings us to the end of today's session as the next step i would highly encourage you to check out the resources below we have an app stream deployment guide available that provides you step-by-step instructions to install and configure app stream we have also published app stream isv project series that provides step-by-step guidance for using app stream to build online trials and sas solution for desktop applications without rewriting them in the beginning of the presentation today i mentioned a forester study we have also added a link for you to view and download the study and if you are ready to do a deep dive or ready to get started please reach out to your aws team or engage one of our partners to schedule a strategy session or start a proof of concept before we conclude today's today's presentation and open for questions i would like to take the opportunity to thank all our attendees and our guest presenter sinan for taking time to join us today for today's online talk to learn how amazon app stream can help you launch a sas solution or deliver online training trials and demos without rewriting your applications we look forward to partner with you to build launch and scale your sas training trials and demo environments on aws using amazon app stream 2.0 thank you