Overview of the Salesforce CRM
In ancient ages, people used papyrus and wood to maintain their customer information, and eventually, this changed to slate. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, kings used to take help from clerks (also known as Munim); these clerks were responsible for maintaining all the customer information on behalf of the king. From time to time, the clerks used to show this account information to the king. The problem with this system was that it was not secured; the clerk could easily manipulate the data for his benefit, and this may have caused losses to the king's business.
"Necessity is the mother of invention" – Plato
As the time passed, computers were invented, so people used them to save the customer information. In the late nineteenth century, the client-server model came into the picture, which introduced a centralized way of keeping record of the customer information.
Client-server architecture
In a client-server architecture, the end user acts as a client to the service provider; the service provider has its own centralized system known as the server. Once the user connects to the server, they get full rights to access their data. A few examples of CRM software based on the client-server model are Siebel, Oracle RightNow, and SugarCRM. The following is a client-server architecture diagram that describes this concept:
Pros and cons of the client-server architecture
The following table describes the pros and cons of the client-server architecture:
|
Pros |
Cons |
|---|---|
|
The data is centralized once the user connects to the server, which means that he or she gets access to the relative data. |
The user does not have access to the data on their system when he or she is not connected to the server. |
|
Any number of users can connect to the server. |
Due to the high volume of requests, the server may stop responding or can go down. |
|
Data is stored in company premises or company data center. |
If a technical fault occurs at the data center, then the customers will not be able to access the system. |
|
This architecture needs technical staff to maintain and upgrade the server. | |
|
This architecture requires a dedicated high-speed server and a client's system with high-end graphics and the required software. |
There were certain problems with the maintenance and upgrading of the client-server model. So, in the twenty-first century, cloud computing came into the picture.
Cloud computing is the new concept in the computing era, in which customers don't have to worry about server maintenance, upgradation, and scalability. We can say that this is a subscription-based model where we can buy the number of licenses as required and start using the application. A few big names in cloud computing are Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Salesforce.com.
As per the preceding diagram, we see that we can connect with a large number of devices (mobiles, tablets, and workstations) via the same server. Customers only need a browser and an Internet connection to use their applications.
Advantages of cloud computing
The following are the advantages of cloud computing:
- No large startup fee
- It's a subscription-based model
- No buying, maintaining, and configuring hardware and software
- We can scale up with the growth of our business
- It's more secure and reliable than the client-server model
- We can access it from anywhere, anytime, and via any device; we just need an Internet connection
