Salt

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What do you mean by Software as a Service (SaaS)?
2. What do you mean by free subscription?
3. I have 6 SAP systems, can I use the Free subscription?
4. If it’s free, how do you make money?
5. What about support for Salt?
6. How many users licenses are included?
7. How many system licenses are included?
8. What is a Virtual Appliance?
9. What is a Virtual Machine?

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What do you mean by Software as a Service (SaaS)?

Software as a service (SaaS, typically pronounced 'sass') is a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand thereby not requiring software users to procure perpetual use licenses (and pay annual maintenance fees) resulting in greater technology flexibility.

Salt is available by subscription meaning you simply pay for what is used and can stop paying at anytime.

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What do you mean by free subscription?

Surprisingly, many will choose not to pay for Salt, you can simply choose to use the free Subscription option and connect up to 3 SAP systems to it.

As you can see from the Subscription Comparison Table, there are 8 apps you can use on this free subscription with an unlimited number users.

The free subscription may be renewed on an annual basis.

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I have 6 SAP systems, can I use the Free subscription?

Yes you can, you could choose to run 2 Salt systems and connect 3 systems to each one, however there is no visibility between these 2 Salt systems.

So if you had DEV (Development), QAS (QA), TST(Test), TRN (Training) and PRD, then any cross system analysis function such as Matrix will only see the 3 systems connected to the one Salt installation and the 2 other systems connected to the other Salt installation.

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If it’s free, how do you make money?

The developers of Salt are the same company that has developed Rev-Trac, SAP change control technology specifically developed for large SAP user organizations with many systems, large volumes of change and complex change control processes (not too uncommon for many smaller SAP user organizations either actually). This product is a market leading technology producing significant revenues for the company.

Salt on the other hand has been developed as a benefit product for use by project teams and team members in all SAP user organizations regardless of size. Although it is expected many will use only the free version, many will upgrade their subscriptions too, mostly for convenience, resulting in more than enough revenue to fund support and the on-going development of Salt.

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What about support for Salt?

We provide a few options for support including an online forum, a knowledgebase and also an option for using our renowned support desk, this last option forms part of the paid subscription options.

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How many users licenses are included?

Users are not limited by number, so an unlimited number of users can use the system.

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How many system licenses are included?

There are currently 3 options:

• The Standard Subscription (which is free) allows for 1 development system and 2 other systems to be connected
• The Professional Subscription allows for 3 development systems and 7 other systems to be connected
• The Enterprise Subscription allows for 6 development systems and 14 other systems to be connected

In the future, we will provide other options allowing for hundreds of SAP systems, however you should feel free to mix and match to create any scenario you like.

For example, you could have 2 or 3 standard subscriptions or 2 Enterprise subscriptions.

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What is a Virtual Appliance?

A virtual appliance is a virtual machine image designed to run on a virtualization platform (e.g., VMware Workstation, Xen, VirtualBox).

Virtual appliances are aimed to eliminate the installation, configuration and maintenance costs associated with running complex stacks of software.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_appliance

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What is a Virtual Machine?

A virtual machine (VM) is a software implementation of a machine (i.e. a computer) that executes programs like a physical machine.

For more information, please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine

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