What is an ASP?
Although it is not widely used by most of the modern world, the term “asp” once referred generically to poisonous snakes, although some people associate asps with cobras in particular. The word often appears in old literature, in places ranging from the plays of William Shakespeare to Victorian novels. In modern literature, the word is usually used poetically, rather than taxonomically. The word is derived from the Greek aspis, which was used to refer to any poisonous snake from Africa, Europe, or Asia. The Greeks both revered and feared the asp, recognizing the power of the snake in numerous religious statues, songs, and other artworks. Egypt and Rome did as well, as archaeological digs have proved. One of the most famous and enduring images of the Ancient world, the Minoan snake goddess unearthed on Crete, holds snakes which may be asps in both of her hands. Both cobras and vipers were encountered by people in the Ancient world and referred to as asps. The snakes were used to execute
An Application Service Provider (ASP) is a way of delivering software over the internet rather than loading it on each companys computer system. An ASP is not software; it is a delivery model a way of accessing and using software. ASPs allow organizations to use sophisticated software that is located at a professional data center instead of installed on your own organizations computers.
An application service provider is a company that creates a subscription based software service. For a periodic fee (usually monthly or yearly) the ASP provides software (which is referred to as the generic term content) and other computer based services to users over the Internet or other network mechanism. There are many people who believe that with the advent of the Internet, it makes sense to provide software as a service rather than as a product in a box. Users simply would pay a fixed monthly or yearly fee in exchange for always having the use of the latest/greatest software technologies.
An ASP deploys, hosts and manages access to a packaged application to multiple parties from a centrally managed facility. The applications are delivered to clients over networks on a subscription basis. This delivery model speeds up implementation, minimizes the expenses and risks incurred across application life cycle, and overcomes the chronic shortage of qualified technical personnel available in-house. Who will support and maintain the MSDS eService application? The burden of technical support falls to MSDS Solutions as an ASP. The application code resides on our side. When upgrades are released, end users will not have to worry about downloading or installing anything from MSDS Solutions Center. We will simply upgrade the copy of the software that resides on “our” servers, and all subscribers access the new version through a web browser.
