What Is Application Hosting?

Application hosting is a type of hosting that is often referred to as SaaS (software as a service) or on-demand software. Apps on your smartphone, such as Facebook, are examples of an app that is hosted somewhere in order to be available to you. It is essentially making the app available from a remote cloud infrastructure that is accessed through the internet.

What Are The Benefits Of Application Hosting?

  • Low Maintenance – when applications are hosted, the software and hardware are the vendor’s responsibility with the client only having to maintain the Internet access. There is no software to have to download, making the application available instantly.
  • Reduced Costs – Because there is no need to license software on a “per concurrent user,” “per server,” “per site,” or “per use’ basis, the cost is reduced a great deal. There are some applications that still charge “per user,” but many have worked to reduce cost so that a customer doesn’t have to estimate how many licenses they may need or pay for full licenses that may only be used by a few people.
  • Reduced risk – The risk is little due to there being no long-term commitment from the customer. New customers can typically test a new hosted application through a pay-as-you-go model or through a free trial model. If a customer finds that the application is not what they need, they can stop using the service.
  • Easily Accessible – Because the data and application software is stored on an Internet server and the data is available to the authorized user once they are logged in, accessing the application is not a problem. People can work from anywhere.
  • Easy Integration – Organizations using legacy systems from varying suppliers will benefit from hosted applications because hosted applications provide an integrated solution to any system using the typical Internet browser on a Windows PC, MAC, or Unix.
  • Support – Hosted applications benefit customers because of the support that is provided. Plus, new updates tend to be installed centrally so that there is no need to keep track of version numbers. The need for version numbers has been completely eliminated in many cases.