Our Quosal quote and proposal automation application delivers many advantages to our users. One of them is extremely flexible deployment, including the ability to host your data “in the cloud,” securely and reliably, for as many users as you need. This capability has been in the application since its release in 2008 – initially with our own servers, and later with the added option of hosting through Microsoft’s SQL-Azure cloud infrastructure.

Quosal is a Windows application and is always installed on a PC or virtual PC environment (Citrix, Terminal Server, etc.), so the ability to seamlessly host the data for the application in the Cloud is unusual – but it offers many advantages and benefits. We have always hosted our own use of Quosal in the cloud, at first as a way of “eating our own dog food,” but I wouldn’t change how we use our own product in this respect – it really offers significant benefits.

First, it’s great to be able to access my central quote and proposal database no matter where I am, without reliance on a corporate VPN or other infrastructure. Several times, I’ve simply downloaded the client application on a new PC, activated with our internal key, and been up and running with my central database in a matter of minutes, without the need to install VPN and other infrastructure that would be needed even for an RDP session. It’s great to not be “tethered.” Whether at home, at the cabin or on the road, I’m always able to access my cloud-based data.

Second, my remote employees around the country have instant and excellent access to the shared quoting database with excellent performance – which is unfortunately not true when they’re on the corporate VPN. With the way our PSA works, a remote employee has full-speed, full-function access to our two most important applications just with an Internet connection.

Third, the “zero administration” of our cloud database is a great benefit even for our own product. While Quosal’s administrative requirements are low even for an internal database, you can’t get away from the fact that any database server has an administrative load that almost disappears when your data is in the Cloud.

For our customers, a Cloud-based deployment provides an excellent and elegant solution in many situations:

• Multiple offices that all need access to shared central data for quotes and proposals.
• Many remote users and road warriors that require the same, especially from high-latency connections.
• Companies that are virtualizing and don’t want to set up a physical database server.
• Companies without a dba or internal database resources that want the hassle-free setup and management of a shared database.

We’ve found that the deployment model that a customer wishes to choose should be separate from the billing model (Licensed or SaaS) that a customer might wish to choose – so we have many customers that have licensed the product, but still run their data in the Cloud as a deployment option. Far from being just a “pay as you go” alternative, Cloud-based data deployment is a highly advantageous way to go for customers large and small.

Both as a Cloud developer and as a user of an advanced desktop application that can store its data in the Cloud, I’m a big fan.