Why CMS as a Service Makes Sense

What if someone told you they wanted to build a distributed software system that supports many clients and lots of data? What if this person told you they wanted the system to have single database per user of the system? Oh yeah, and the databases would be geographically spread across the country on multiple servers. And there’s software that has to run alongside each database installation (that will need to be updated in the future, ON EACH database, ON EVERY server).

I know how you would respond. You would say, “You’re crazy and your architecture sucks! I quit!” Well, the reality is, this is the architecture that most content management systems run on. When you have multiple web sites running multiple cms systems on multiple servers you encounter this unsightly scenario. And it makes no sense. If you have 5 different clients with 5 different sites on 5 different servers using say, Wordpress as a cms, what happens when there’s a software patch?

You log into 5 servers for 5 sites and hope that 5 patches work without major problems. This is the same nonsense that is moving desktop software to the web, to a services model. When a desktop application is patched/updated it has to redeploy to everyone using it. When a web-based software system is patched/updated, everyone instantly gets the new fix because the system is a centrally located service. So why can’t a cms do this? Because traditionally, content management systems have not been centrally located and offered as a service. Modern content management systems are the server equivalent of desktop software.

So what’s the solution? Move your content (and/or your client’s content) to a single place and consume it as a service. Now when there’s an update, all of your client sites automatically receive the new changes. Even if you have 1 client on Godaddy server, another on a Crystaltech server and 3 others on a dedicated server, they all get the updates and go to one place to manage their content; all because the cms is a service, not an installed package.