Tag ' SaaS ' - 3SL Blog

5th May 20234th August 2023

May Newsletter 2023

Welcome to the May 2023 newsletter from 3SL!

This newsletter contains a mixture of news and technical information about us, and our requirements management and systems engineering tool “Cradle”. We would especially like to welcome everyone who has purchased Cradle in the past month and those who are currently evaluating Cradle for their projects and processes.

We hope that 3SL and Cradle can deliver real and measurable benefits that help you to improve the information flow within, the quality and timeliness of, and the traceability, compliance and governance for, all of your current and future projects.

If you have any questions about your use of Cradle, please do not hesitate to contact 3SL Support.

3SL SaaS

Deploying Cradle as SaaS (software as a service) is becoming an increasingly attractive option for many organisations. Using SaaS greatly simplifies the deployment of Cradle as there is nothing that you, or your corporate IT, need to do.

We ask for the names of the people who will use Cradle, and the IP addresses from where they will access Cradle, and then we do the rest.

You and your colleagues get access to the latest Cradle, backed by our internationally renown technical support, with no need to be concerned about IT services, data integrity, backups or any of the other details that can be a burden for an in-house installation.

For more information, please look here. If you would like to talk to us about SaaS deployments of Cradle, please click here.

Baselines and Snapshots

Cradle provides two mechanisms to protect sets of information and provide read-only access to information as it was in the past.

Baselines

Baselines is the mechanism in Cradle’s Configuration Management System (CMS) to protect information from changes. Each baseline is a named repository for the state of a project at a specific point in time. A succession of baselines can be created over the life of a project, each containing more and more information as the project completes its sprints, iterations or phases.

Items can be registered into an open baseline and are given a version number: 01, 02, 03 … The version number assigned to each item is either 01 if there are no baselined instances of that item, or it is 1 higher than the highest version already in the database.

When the baseline is closed:

Unchanged items from the previous baseline migrate into (become a part of) the new baseline
A copy of all current links (cross references) is saved with the baseline
A list of the latest items and their versions is saved for the baseline

Snapshots

A snapshot is a copy of all the information in a database. Its contents can be viewed, read-only, at any time in the future. A succession of snapshots can be created over the life of a project. In effect, a snapshot is simply an online backup, a copy of a database.

A snapshot is a copy of an entire database. When a snapshot is created, everything in a database, including all of its baselines and definitions (excluding Personal and System scope) are copied into a separate area. Every snapshot is separate from all other snapshots and is separate from the live database.

Creating a snapshot is similar to making a backup copy of the database, except that this backup is directly accessible from within Cradle.

Comparison

#	Characteristic	Baseline	Snapshot
1	Summary	Creates a new approved set of items and links in a database that can be viewed RO.	Copies an entire database and related definitions to create a new database that can be viewed RO.
2	User Benefit	RO view of previous baseline that can be used for queries, view data, run metrics, publish reports or documents	RO view of everything in the database as it was in the past, for queries, view data, run metrics, publish reports or documents
3	Additional Items	None	None
4	Additional links	Duplicates all current links	None
5	Database Size	Adds some items and copies all links	None
6	Disk Usage	Small to medium increase	Medium to large increase

For more details, please see our blog post here.

Circus Starr

3SL are proud to announce that we are supporting Circus Starr!

The community interest circus company are dedicated to making a difference to the lives of vulnerable and disadvantaged children in Barrow-in-Furness and across England through the magical art of circus. We are pleased to support our community, and this accessible and inclusive event is such a worthy cause.

To find out more about how you can support the circus with a purpose visit www.circus-starr.org.uk or call +44 (0) 1260 288690.

The Coronation of King Charles III

Many people across the country and the Commonwealth will be celebrating the Coronation of His Majesty The King and Her Majesty the Queen Consort over a weekend of special events on 6th to 8th May 2023.

International Nurses Day

Every year International Nurses Day is celebrated on 12 May to commemorate the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birthday. This day also celebrates the contribution done by nurses to society around the world. On this day the International Council of Nurses organisation produces an International Nurses kit to educate and assist health workers globally with a different theme every year.

"Nurse" Photo by Laura James from Pexels — Nurse

World Multiple Sclerosis Day

On 30th May it is World Multiple Sclerosis Day. World MS day takes place on 30th May every year. Share stories, raise awareness and campaign with everyone affected by MS.

Social Media

We congratulated our customer ZF Group on the opening of their West Coast Mobility Hub which is a cutting edge facility dedicated to shaping the future of mobility.

Borg Warner were presenting how H2-ICE enables fast and efficient transportation at the World Hydrogen 2023 Summit & Exhibition.

Siemens Mobility demonstrated how their pioneering Vectron Dual Mode locomotives combined advantages of full featured diesel locomotive with those of electric ones.

We congratulated Horiba on obtaining UKAS accreditation against ISO17021-1.

Roche confirmed that the US FDA had granted approval to their new combination treatment for certain types of previously untreated diffuse large B cell lymphoma. This makes it the first therapy in nearly 20 years approved by the FDA for people with this aggressive disease.

Looking Back!

Last month we discussed:

We would also like to thank all attendees on our Risk Management course which we provided in April.

We also received a fantastic review from one of our customers:

“When there have been technical difficulties, the staff have been frequently quick, knowledgeable, and able to help restore normal operations. The level of service is above the levels of several large name companies, I struggle to think of what more I can ask for.”

We appreciate all feedback as this helps us to both assess and look to improve both the products and services we provide.

Still to Come this Month

Test Execution Course – May 23rd to May 24th

5th April 20234th August 2023

April Newsletter 2023

Welcome to the April 2023 newsletter from 3SL!

If you have any questions about your use of Cradle, please do not hesitate to contact 3SL Support.

Is SaaS Beneficial?

Traditionally, software was installed on in-house computers. You managed the hardware that ran the software, ensured the integrity of the data created with the software with appropriate backups, and applied all the operating system and firmware updates needed to keep the system running properly.

Increasingly, individuals and companies simply want to use software, and have someone else host it, ensure the integrity of the data that they create, and manage the resilience of the underlying hardware and software infrastructure.

This is SaaS – software as a service.

Most large software companies try hard to force all customers to use SaaS by buying subscriptions. For example, although it is possible to buy Microsoft and Adobe products to install in-house, you have to work hard to find the part of their websites where such purchases can be made.

SaaS is charged on a per user per month basis for the functionality used. You pay more as you add users and as you access more functionality. You can stop the service when access to the software will be removed, all your data will be deleted, and you will stop being charged. This is all reasonable.

Some SaaS Benefits

SaaS brings benefits including:

You do not need to provide resources (hardware or VMs) to run the software
You do not have to maintain these resources nor provide the staff to perform this maintenance
You can easily react to short term needs
You do not need to provide integrity for the data that is created
You do not have any costs if you don’t need the resource for a while

Problems with SaaS

Of course there are also disadvantages to SaaS:

It will be more expensive than deploying in-house, typically after 2 years
You have no direct access, so you are reliant on your SaaS provider being responsive and complying with the SLA – you do have a Service Level Agreement don’t you?
You cannot directly interact with the software and must rely on the SaaS provider’s competence with the software and their understanding of what you want to achieve. This could cause delays or errors.
You do not have physical control over your data or the hardware that hosts it
Your data may be exposed by being given to third parties without your knowledge or consent, given such as the US Patriot Act (parts of which are still in effect) and the collaboration between groups including the EU and 5 Eyes – this includes all data centres managed by US companies regardless of their location, so be mindful when considering US-owned Infrastructure as a Service such as, but not only, Azure and AWS
You have to manage the IP ranges that are to have access, unless your SaaS allows access by the entire Internet

Is a Cradle SaaS Worth It?

This depends on your situation. In general:

if you do not have an IT organisation, or
if Cradle is too small to be applicable to your IT organisation

and:

if you are confident that 3SL understands Cradle and will be responsive to your needs and
if the SLA and Cradle SaaS are acceptable (see the 3SL Cradle End User SaaS Agreement – EUSA), and
you have agreed a location for your data (within 3SL or in a SaaS Virtual Private Cloud – VPC – that 3SL will build for you in an agreed location)

then, yes, SaaS is a good solution as it allows you to concentrate on using Cradle to the benefit of your projects and leaves the management of the Cradle infrastructure to others.

Fixed IPs for Cradle SaaS

We do not want a Cradle SaaS to be accessible by the entire Internet. Each Cradle SaaS includes an external firewall that specifies the IP addresses or ranges (CIDRs) of the locations that are allowed access. Access from any IP address is ignored if it is not in this list of allowed locations.

This method works well except when a user’s IP address is not fixed. A user’s IP address is not fixed if they access the SaaS from either:

many locations, such as customer sites, hotel rooms, train stations, public tea rooms, or
a domestic Internet connection where the ISP assigns a different IP address to the user every time that they connect to the Internet

In these cases, 3SL will consider the size of the IP address range. A small IP address range may be acceptable to both you and 3SL. For example, the CIDR:

78.37.252.0/22

is a range of 1,024 IP addresses 78.37.252.0 to 78.37.255.255 inclusive. In general, 3SL will not accept CIDRs of more than 64 addresses.

The solution to this problem is to have a fixed IP address.

Fixed IP Addresses and VPNs

If the end user’s location is not fixed or does not have a fixed IP address, they can get a fixed IP address by:

An organisation may provide a VPN. If so, then route the user’s connection to the Cradle SaaS over this VPN. This has two advantages. First, the connection from the end user’s computer is encrypted by the VPN, so it can be used safely from highly insecure locations such as tea shops or hotel rooms. Second, the connection to the SaaS will be from the organisation’s fixed external IP address. This is transparent to the end user. The end user simply starts the VPN as they will for all company work, and then connect to the Cradle SaaS.
A fixed IP address can be purchased from a range of providers, such as are listed here
For an extra fee, 3SL can provide a reverse proxy server that provides a VPN. The end user connects this VPN using authentication details from 3SL, typically a certificate issued by 3SL. The connection to the Cradle SaaS will come from the reverse proxy server, which has a fixed IP address. This method is also secure as it uses an encrypted VPN connection, and so it is safe to use from insecure locations.

Happy Easter

Easter, also called Pascha or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday.

We would like to wish all our customers, prospects, distributors and suppliers a Happy Easter:

St George’s Day

Saint George’s Day is the feast day of Saint George, celebrated by Christian churches, countries, and cities of which he is the patron saint:

Depicting the legend of St George in an ACD — St. George as a UML Activity Diagram (ACD)

If you ever want a reminder of the legend of St. George the diagram above may be handy. For more information see the Cradle help section for ACD

We would like to wish all our customers, prospects, distributors and suppliers a Happy Saint George’s Day.

World Autism Acceptance Week

World Autism Acceptance Week is on Monday 27th March to Sunday 2nd April with Autism Awareness Day on 2nd April. The theme for 2023 is colour.

The National Autistic Society provide support for autistic adults and children and their families.

Parental Alienation Awareness Day

Parental Alienation Awareness Day is on 25th April each year. This is a global campaign to raise awareness of Parental Alienation. It is an opportunity for parents, grandparents, extended family members or friends to come together to access information, advice and to enable connection and support for others affected by Parental Alienation.

Social Media

Twitter

We helped to celebrate and raise awareness on both #InternationalWomensDay and #WorldDownSyndromeDay.

#hensoldt were exhibiting at #HeliExpo (booth 5614) where they talked about airborne portfolio covering mission systems, situational awareness and certified lightweight flight data recorder. Hensoldt also won contracts from #Hyundai Heavy Industries to provide six offshore patrol vessels and two corvettes which are currently being constructed for the Philippine Navy.

Congratulations to the team at @SafranSeats who had been recognised by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development at the CIPD Wales Awards for being the Best Wellbeing Initiative in the region for a large company.

@MirionHQ were exhibiting (booth 3) at the Cyber Security Implementation Workshop where they provided an insight into their solutions for cyber security, command and control and lifecycle management.

@Roche and Lilly have joined together to enhance early diagnosis of Alzheimers disease.

Looking Back!

Last month we discussed:

We would also like to thank all attendees on our Document Publisher course which we provided in March.

Still to Come this Month

Risk Management training course

24th February 20236th March 2023

3SL Cradle Cloud Services

Our Cradle “cloud” services (SaaS – Software as a Service) provide access to 3SL’s Requirements Management and Systems Engineering tool – Cradle using remote servers. This means there is no need to install the software on your company systems.

They are also a cost effective way to get up and running with Cradle.

3SL offers a choice of Cradle-Enterprise systems delivered as Cradle cloud services from a choice of servers, in a range of fixed term subscriptions, each accessed by your choice of concurrent users.

The Cradle service provides Cradle directly to the users from a remote environment managed by 3SL:

In a matter of days from order
With no software installations
Needing no, or little, work from your IT

What is the Cradle Service?

The Cradle service:

Is a self-contained set of Cradle and third party software tools
Is integrated with your filesystems and printers
Is secure and resilient
Needs no administration by your organisation
If you wish, is linked to your corporate email
If you wish, is run on servers exclusive to you

The Cradle service delivers the latest version of Cradle, and related applications directly to user’s desktops. Cradle and the other tools appear in windows like any other application that a user runs locally. But Cradle, and your databases, all run on remote servers inside the Cradle service.

You can have any number of databases. They, and the data inside them, are private to you. 3SL will manage the service so you can be assured that it is always available.

You can choose a lower cost shared service or a dedicated service. In the shared service, you share servers at 3SL in the UK with other subscribers, keeping privacy of your data and databases. In a dedicated service, 3SL creates a virtual private cloud (VPC) of servers using a third party hosting provider that are exclusive to you and located in any geographic area that you choose.

All databases are backed up automatically with a 3 hour RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and an 8 hour RPO ( Recovery Point Objective). Backups are held for 8 months.

Cradle Subscriptions

The Cradle system types available as a subscription are:

Cradle Enterprise-RM Basic – requirements management including the ability to generate metrics and dashboards
Cradle Enterprise-RM Pro – requirements management including the ability to generate metrics, dashboards and produce quality documentation
Cradle Enterprise-SE Basic – systems engineering including systems modelling and the ability to generate metrics and dashboards
Cradle Enterprise-SE Pro – systems engineering including system modelling and the ability to generate metrics, dashboards and produce quality documentation

The Cradle subscriptions can be packaged into simple fixed term durations ranging from one month to sixty months. This allows you to budget and ensure cover for a whole host of proejcts. You will be free to finish or renew as your project needs at the end of the term.

Cradle SaaS in a Nutshell

Choose from a range of Cradle Enterprise systems to provide the capabilities you need
Choose a shared or dedicated host environment
Specify the number of users that you need to have access to the environment
Specify how long you want the service for
Work in any number of databases
Upload and download data and results easily from your local IT systems
Print directly to your local devices if needed
On-boarding service to help you get started
Off-boarding service to preserve your work before your subscription ends
Add extra terms and change who can access the service at any time

For pricing of the Cradle subscriptions please visit our website.

12th October 20185th April 2023

SaaS not SaaS

Software As A Service (SaaS)

SaaS not SaaS, a rather confusing statement when you look at the use of acronyms. We can assure you that Cradle Software As A Service is what we mean. However, we’ve had a bit of fun looking at some of the other meanings.

Shared or dedicated servers and not the lifesaving work of South Australian Ambulance Service.

SaaS not South Australian Ambulance Service

The full Cradle experience and not the promotion of science in agriculture offered by the Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists

Software as a Service (Saas) and not Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists — SaaS not Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists

Cradle SaaS from Barrow but not to be confused with the historic Barrow-in-Furness product – Marsh’s Sass

Software as a Service not Marsh's Sass — SaaS not Marsh’s Sass

There’s a Cradle SaaS collection suitable for you, but if you’ve got a yawny #FridayFeeling, then maybe you need to look at the work of the Sleep Assessment and Advisory Service instead.

Software as a Service (Saas) not the Sleep Assessment and Advisory Service — SaaS not Sleep Assessment and Advisory Service

Whilst today Jan 30th 2019 we’ve seen the first heavy snow flakes in Barrow, we can assure you there snow time like the present to get Cradle Software as a Service not Snow and a Shovel

Software as a ServieNOT Snow and a Shovel — SaaS NOT Snow and a Shovel

Mini Poll

Please answer our Mini Poll, whether you prefer the:

ownership, control and flexibility of software purchase,
simplified, outsourced benefits of a managed service.

Cradle

Our Requirements Management and Systems Engineering software is available in a number of S a a S flavours. For information of the subscription products see Subscriptions on the Products menu.

UPDATED: April 2020 – Image tags

10th September 20187th October 2022

September 2018 Newsletter

Budget Thoughts

based on image from Pexels.com, costs are both project and capital / infastructure based — Budget Thoughts

As we head towards Q4, both businesses and governments will be looking at their costs to date and their costs for next year. As we mentioned in last September’s newsletter, one way of controlling your project costs is to use Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) with costings associated with each element. Those costs are for the actual implementation of the elements of the project, materials or labour. However, every business has base running costs associated staff, buildings, machines and software.

Running Costs

How do you plan your yearly costs? What does your jurisdiction count as capital investment and what as running costs? Need a fixed price for a fixed period of your project? Do you have an IT department that is more wrapped up in red tape than a red billiard ball in a tin of red paint within a red (reusable of course) red carrier bag? Don’t like the installation cost of keeping up to date with the latest versions of software.

If the answer is ‘yes’ to any of the above, then SaaS could be the way to go. 3SL is hard at work putting our hosted software service provision together. Watch out for further announcements.

Mini Poll

Please answer our Mini Poll, whether you prefer the:

ownership, control and flexibility of software purchase,
simplified, outsourced benefits of a managed service.

Cradle Latest Version

The latest version 7.4.0.2 has all the latest 7.4 patches. If you’ve not downloaded and installed it, please consider doing so to ensure you have the best Cradle experience. Anyone with a 7.4 licence code is entitled to this update.

Fixes include;

An issue setting names for requirements and notes in the Item Properties dialog.
A glitch showing some RTF frames.
Exact match query not returning all versions.
An issue with historic blank alerts, and item ownership changes.
Opening parent diagram or deleting symbol could hang.
Document Publisher failed when checking for existing processes.
Web Access bug with LOGIN_UI_SHOW parameter.
Improvement in queries on RTF frames now supporting <null> and !<null> searches.
Better detection for Microsoft® Office 365 during installation.

Charity

User 3SL30 for a £30 discount see https://www.threesl.com/blog/birthday-voucher-30/ ‎ — Discount code

We have a special “Secret (not!) Birthday Discount” offer of £30 off single user prices and licences.

However, those buying Cradle Enterprise licences can choose to donate £30 per licence bought to a charity of their choice. Ts&Cs apply

Twitter

tweet by B1M regarding hyperloop — Hyper Loop

We love keeping an eye on what’s new in the field of engineering. The prospect of an airline speed train caught our eye.
The vacuum in here is neither hand-held, vortex, bagged nor available at any supermarket / electrical retailer! However it will be required to shift vast quantities of air.

illustration of the use of pictures within modelling environemtn in MBSE Cradle tool — Cat in Cradle

And on a lighter note we mused at International Cat Day placing a cat in the #Cradle as an illustration in the use of images in diagrams as part of the MBSE (Model Based Systems Engineering) representation of a system.

4th September 201812th October 2018

Cradle SaaS

3SL Introduce ‘Cradle Subscriptions’ .

3SL are would like to announce our latest product. The Cradle Subscriptions option is a SaaS (Software as a Service) product that that provides access to 3SL’s requirements management and systems engineering tool Cradle using remote servers. There will be no need to install software on your own company systems.

Cradle Software As A Service — Cradle SaaS

Configurations

Cradle Enterprise offers huge flexibility in terms of the modules you can choose to licence and how many of each concurrent user you’ll need. This provides ultimate flexibility. In order to provide a hosted service and keep administration simple, Cradle ‘SaaS’ will be offered in four ‘flavours’ similar to the versions available as single user products. We offer the most popular licences in collection at a set ratio depending on the number of users.

So whether you are collating requirements, designing a system model, running a dashboard or publishing a document, there’s a SaaS collection form you.

Cradle Licences Collection	Enterprise-RM Basic	Enterprise-RM Pro	Enterprise-SE Basic	Enterprise-SE Pro
Functions	Requirements elicitation and processing.	Requirements elicitation and processing with project management functions and publishing	Requirements and System modelling.	Requirements and System modelling, project management functions and publishing

Shared or Dedicated

For smaller projects, at a really keen price, you can pick a shared server hosted by 3SL with a shared database backend. This is ideal to get you up and running or to give you an easy way to test the benefits of an enterprise level system. This would be a great way of quickly scaling from a single user system to an enterprise arrangement as more people onboard to you project.

For larger corporate users wanting a little more control and no shared resource, Cradle is available on a cloud server. There will be a dedicated CDS (Cradle Database Server) just for your projects. This will provide you with the full power of an enterprise system without you needing your own IT hardware or managers.

Terms

Cradle SaaS can be packaged into simple fixed term durations. These will be available from one month to sixty months. This will allow customers to budget and ensure cover for a whole host of projects. You’ll be free to finish or renew as your project needs at the end of a term.

Article UpdateD

02/10/2018 – Release of SaaS

2nd July 20188th December 2022

Cradle Available as Packaged SaaS through G-Cloud 11

G-Cloud 11

The UK government Digital Market Place Cloud Software applications offer a wide range of software aimed at fulfilment of central and regional government contracts, government agencies’ work and local authority use. This ranges from accounting to transport, healthcare to sales. We are pleased to announce that Cradle is available as SaaS through G-Cloud 11 for agile and phase-based projects under the Information and communications technology (ICT) services.

Services

We are offering a range of packaged SaaS services that include Cradle licences, a pre-defined schema and intensive support from 3SL for both unclassified (IL0) and OFFICIAL (certified IL3) deployments:

3SL Cradle Business Analysis (unclassified) and Official IL3 (classified)
3SL Cradle Agile Collaboration (unclassified) and Official IL3 (classified)
3SL Cradle Systems Engineering (unclassified) and Official IL3 (classified)
3SL Cradle Requirements Management (unclassified) and Official IL3 (classified)
3SL Cradle Application Lifecycle Management (unclassified) and Official IL3 (classified)
3SL Cradle Business Process Modelling (unclassified) and Official IL3 (classified)
3SL Cradle Agile Software Development (unclassified) and Official IL3 (classified)
3SL Cradle Agile Software Management (unclassified) and Official IL3 (classified)
3SL Cradle Application Lifecycle Development (unclassified) and Official IL3 (classified)

Prices start from as little as £20 per user per month. Including Email, webchat and phone support and full documentation included. Optional onsite support and training available. This can be supplied on Windows® or Linux®.

Customisation

A wide range of user customisation is available including:

Items’ (attributes, links and properties)
Display of chosen data and layout through queries, views, forms,
Processing data to give graphs, reports, documents, metrics, KPIs/dashboards, process
CM (Configuration Management) system workflows
UI (User Interface) layout and content
Authentication and access control

Details

For details, see here:

screen shot of 3SL g cloud services — G Cloud

For a short summary of Cradle, see our video here: We’re sure you’ll find our services useful to completing successful projects. We look forward to working with you!

1st August 20166th December 2022

Cradle Now Available as SaaS via G-Cloud 8!

We are pleased to announce that Cradle is now available as SaaS through G-Cloud 8 for agile and phase-based projects.

We are offering a range of packaged #SaaS services that include #Cradle licences, a pre-defined schema and intensive support from #3SL for both unclassified (IL0) and OFFICIAL (certified IL3) deployments:

– Agile Collaboration
– Agile Software Development
– Agile Software Management
– Application Lifecycle Development
– Application Lifecycle Management
– Business Analysis
– Business Process Modelling
– Requirements Management
– Systems Engineering

Prices start at £20 per user per month.

For details, see here:

https://www.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/g-cloud/search?q=3sl&lot=saas

and as a short link here:

http://ow.ly/X4Dd302Ohbe

and for a short summary of Cradle, see our video here: https://youtu.be/bgiQQ0N8bV4

We hope that you will find our services interesting! We look forward to working with you!