Software-As-A-Service for improving Drug Research towards a standardized approach

Software as a Service (SaaS) is one of the most interesting applications of a service-oriented architecture. SaaS spares users the cost of acquiring and maintaining hardware and software. The SaaS business model is very widely appreciated in the economy, because it brings not only financial benefits but also process-optimizing benefits. Drug research is a lengthy, complex and costly process that involves a number of disciplines, from medicine through economics to natural science. Until recently, the standard programs and infrastructure used for data analysis were almost exclusively commercial, proprietary, closed source and expensive. One of the major attractions of the open-source model is to customize the platform to suite the requirements and react faster on changes. There are different proprietary approaches. However there is a gap in knowledge regarding using closed and proprietary infrastructure. The aim of this research is to investigate the impact of an open source SaaS approach on the drug research process.