Most providers of hosted software solutions traditionally have
delivered those solutions over the Internet from their own servers.
However, an increasing number of businesses are interested in
outsourcing not only their internal-use IT infrastructure but also
the systems used to host their client-facing solutions. Doing so
may allow a business to focus more on product development than
datacenter maintenance, with new servers added at the push of a
button.
Microsoft products form the backbone of many hosted solutions,
and Microsoft's principal license model for those use cases is
the Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA). Fortunately for
companies interested in outsourcing, it is possible under SPLA for
a service provider to use a third party's servers to host
Microsoft products used to support hosted solutions that the
service provider makes available to its customers. The SPLA refers
to such third parties either as:
