EA SaaS trial?

[Ian Mitchell]

Talking to a potential new EA customer today, she wants to try EA before suggesting it for her team, but was amazed that there is no SaaS trial for EA.
Her company policy is 'Cloud only', and she has absolutely no chance of installing EA on her desktop.
But she had spotted that EA 16 is now available as SaaS.
So is there any chance of offering this?
It would need 100% self-sevice setup, and probably a few checks to prevent misuse, and we might make it lighter on the security by having a multi-tenant configuration and to keep costs down.
How about it ?
@Sparx HQ? @6ThForce ?

[Eve]

https://prolaborate.sparxsystems.com/enterprise-architect-saas-solution

[Ian Mitchell]

Yes, thanks Eve, I'm very familiar with the current EA SaaS solutions, having sold several of them over the last few years.
What I'm asking for is something whihc Sparex don't currently offer - a one-stop, simple way of someone experimenting with EA via a web browser, in the same way that in the old world they do by just by registering and downloading a 30-day EA trial version.

The link you provide provdes a blizzard of information about EA SaaS.

Which button does my customer press to get a limited time, single user vesion of EA SaaS? Right now, whilst they have the idea to try it out?
Almost all web-based solutions will let them take a trial with just some basic information and a few clicks. Yes, I know EA isn't a web based solition, but EA SaaS is trying to make it look like that.
Please can someone @HQ or 6F give this a bit more thought?
This is a serious question, deserving a bit more than a hyperlink.

[Eve]

If you have a serious question about that service then you need to contact the people running that service. I don't have the answers.

How about this link?

https://prolaborate.sparxsystems.com/custom-cloud-quote

It offers specific questions about the kind of customization is offered.

[Takeshi K]

Hi Ian,

Just my opinion, it is difficult to offer the same way as current 30-day EA trial. Because 'someone' must pay the cost, and it is more than ignorable.

Recently I have set up (maybe) the same environments as the SaaS on both the Amazon AppStream and Microsoft Azure,  but I deleted them soon since I must pay much, even if I stop the service. I think it is fair to be asked in detail if the trial cost would be paid by Sparx.

HTH,

[Nizam]

Hi Ian
Thanks for your interest,
As you know, ‘EA SaaS’ is the Cloud based version of the reputed and proven Sparx Enterprise Architect  modeling tool
Enterprise Architect application trial can be used to evaluate the functional fit for the teams, which we still offer to the users as a 30 day trial

Users can also avail a Trial SaaS environment to ensure that the solution works for them.
But, Users seek EA SaaS trial primarily to understand

• The performance one can expect by using a SaaS solution (10x compared to WAN deployments)
• Ease of getting started with a modeling practice - No Installations, no crossovers, no VMs, etc
• Security and other aspects that the team will be concerned in moving to SaaS (SOC Compliance, VAPT, etc)

Considering all these, we try to understand the painpoints that the user intends to solve, before providing a time-boxed trial.

To make the most of the evaluation, we attempt to make it available based on the availability of the team, the country (region), and even load their models (on request) to allow them to see the true benefit of switching to SaaS.

More information can be found at
https://sparxsystems.com/products/ea/saas/index.html

Users can reach our team to request a trial by contacting [email protected] or [email protected]

If one would like to ascertain the costs of the solution, they can request a quote here
https://prolaborate.sparxsystems.com/custom-cloud-quote

HTH
Nizam Mohamed

[Nizam]

Hi Ian,

Just my opinion, it is difficult to offer the same way as current 30-day EA trial. Because 'someone' must pay the cost, and it is more than ignorable.

Hi Takeshi, Thanks for the reply,  totally agreed.
The approach of dealing with conventional practices with desktop applications may not be applicable to the Cloud and SaaS world, as there are number of factors like inherent costs, security, availability region, security constraints, etc.

[Ian Mitchell]

I agree with both of you - mostly.
Nizam's right - over the last few years we've encouraged several existing EA customers to move over to a cloud implementation, and with the help of Nizam and his excellent team, this is going well. Nizam's approach of a hands-on, thoughtful trial of EA-in-the-cloud works well. (Most of my customers look at it for 5 minutes, then decide "it's just like my normal EA - only faster!")

But what about the new EA users?
More and more of them are in this 'cloud only' world, so they will never be able to experience EA because they can't get it installed on their desktop. I recently waited 5 months for a UK government customer to get EA installed on one of their machines - they also have a 'cloud only' policy, but thankfully some EA evangelists to push for the change.
I'm concerned that EA might get left behind for these new customers: one has already asked my if Sparx are serious about SaaS, given that there isn't a way to do an instant trial.
If we're serious about EA SAAS, then lets go the whole way, and offer a 30-day, or 10 day, or 5 day free trial of EA SaaS.
Takeshi is quite right - someone will have to pay for the hosting, and the logical funder would be Sparx HQ.
Partners might be happy to fund it, so long as they get a margin on any EA licences and hosting revenue, but of course the customer might go to Nizam direct, or host it in their own cloud and buy direct.
So it's back to being HQ-funded.
I can't see the cost of this being huge, compared to overall EA revenues (several $10M s) : more of an issue would be to fund and manage the setup and maintenance of the trial environment, and designing it to have some level of security, but minimal cost.
It's going to be hard to sell EA SaaS to new customers without this offering.

[Modesto Vega]

Hi Ian,

Happy New Year!!

I have a similar concern, Sparx Systems at times seems to be missing the cloud train. The fact that for a 2nd year in a row, for whatever reason, they are not in the Gartner report does not help.

Corporate structure could be an issue at play here. Historically, Sparx Systems has been a software reseller operating outside its home country through partners and resellers. If you think about it, this is not a cloud friendly model.

The relationship between Prolaborate and Sparx Systems is not clearly described in the Sparx Systems website. The About Us page on the Sparx Systems page is not very corporate, just look at the postal address. This probably does not help neither.

UK public sector organisations and many UK private sector organisations are going to require having EA as SaaS hosted in the UK or Europe, either in Azure or AWS, integrated with their identity management and access management solution - e.g. Azure Active Directory; with the service provider meeting certain in standards. Sparx Systems corporate structure and  selling channels, and product offering do not, in my opinion, facilitate this.

There is also an issue around native visual modelling on a web browser. AFIK there is no product in the market capable of native web browser visual modelling - i.e., without somehow having to run a thick client to achieve visual modelling. All architecture modelling tools I am aware of cannot do visual modelling on a web broser.

Happy to continue part of the conversation over private messages or e-mails.

[Geert Bellekens]

Hi Ian,

Happy New Year!!

I have a similar concern, Sparx Systems at times seems to be missing the cloud train. The fact that for a 2nd year in a row, for whatever reason, they are not in the Gartner report does not help.

I've been told that is because they stopped sponsoring Gartner. The whole Gartner magic quandrant is bull-shit anyway. That fact that MEGA appears in it is proof enough for me.

Corporate structure could be an issue at play here. Historically, Sparx Systems has been a software reseller operating outside its home country through partners and resellers. If you think about it, this is not a cloud friendly model.

The relationship between Prolaborate and Sparx Systems is not clearly described in the Sparx Systems website. The About Us page on the Sparx Systems page is not very corporate, just look at the postal address. This probably does not help neither.

UK public sector organisations and many UK private sector organisations are going to require having EA as SaaS hosted in the UK or Europe, either in Azure or AWS, integrated with their identity management and access management solution - e.g. Azure Active Directory; with the service provider meeting certain in standards. Sparx Systems corporate structure and  selling channels, and product offering do not, in my opinion, facilitate this.

I believe the Sparx Saas solution provided by Sparx (actually by Sparx India) can be hosted in the EU if you require that.

Geert

[Nizam]

Hello Ian
You are right for someone who is serious about starting with EA, a  trial will certainly help. 

We do offer the entire platform for them as trial, this includes EA SaaS, integrations and Prolaborate (optional)   the only difference is we've tried to introduce a quick touch base step to ensure the clients get the right guidance.

The approach of providing them a demo of how the platform could help them with their architectural needs has been helping teams to get started quickly and based on the discussion, we can certainly provide a time box trial like you said. The feedback from the new users also seem to be positive with this approach, as it guides them on what to expect.

If you are still facing any challenges in provisioning trial for serious users, please let us know and we will try to address them forthwith.

Thanks
Nizam Mohamed

[Nizam]

Hello Modesto
The Sparx cloud offerings have been making its inroads since 2020 and these offerings are used by more than 75 teams across the world.

The EA SaaS and EA Cloud platforms are now an official offering from Sparx systems,
https://sparxsystems.com/products/ea/saas/index.html

The offerings are mostly singlet tenant hosted in the respective region and complies to all the data security requirements including GDPR and the likes.

Furthermore, we have the leading telcos, energy companies and semi- government organizations in the UK using our cloud offering hosted in secure environments in AWS UK.

The web based modelling client offers the best of both world's and the solution has been custom built for the platform and offers seamless single sign on with two factor authentication and other restrictions as per the corporate info sec standards.

The solution has been recognised by AWS and has been published as a case study as well.
https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/sixthforcesolutions/

I request you to take a look at the links and if you would like to know more please feel free to drop us a note to [email protected] or [email protected] and will be happy to connect and discuss

Please Look at this link to see EA SaaS in action and how it offers the benchmark performance
.
EA SaaS with SSO
https://youtu.be/1s1BEm-z1Dk

An overview of the platform
https://youtu.be/3Jw8dUzSAMg