What is the relationship between the software-as-a-service project and cloud computing?
Rainer Gerten: Cloud computing consists of three levels. On the first level we find systems such as SAP, which you can operate for customers in a virtualized manner – platform-as-a-service, so to speak. On the second level, on which we find ourselves in this project, applications can be flexibly partitioned to several companies without the user noticing this. Several components of a logical application can also be present in a cloud in a partitioned manner. This is software-as-a-service. On the third level, complete application systems are virtualized as a whole. Here the desktop can be detached from the stationary workstation so that the user can securely access his or her own applications with all available end-devices. This is the level of application virtualization.
