Create an offer on Azure Marketplace
The Azure Marketplace is a platform that offers managed services such as virtual machine images, security, networking, storage, and databases and applications. Automotive OEMs use the marketplace to deploy end-to-end solutions quickly and reliably.
Independent software vendors can use the marketplace to provide ready-to-use solutions that integrate with the OEM IT infrastructure. The recommended offer for automotive OEMs is managed applications, which allow the OEM to deploy the solution in their infrastructure. However, the publisher can still have read-only access for troubleshooting and implement custom billing concepts.
The Azure Marketplace provides the following relevant types of offers for automotive independent software vendor (ISV) publishers:
Container: Use this offer type when the publisher offers a container image. Azure container offers are transactable based on usage.
Managed application: Use this offer type when the publisher offers a managed service or application that runs in the customer’s subscription. You can deploy these applications into a customer’s subscription with a single click.
SaaS: Use this offer type to offer software that is delivered as SaaS on the Azure Marketplace. The SaaS offers run in the publisher’s tenant.
The offer types have the following advantages and disadvantages in the automotive context:
| Advantage | Disadvantage | |
|---|---|---|
| Container | Simple to create and manage. Runs in the customer subscription. | Not suited for complex applications. |
| Managed application | Runs in the customer subscription, which simplifies data segregation and security. Reduces network traffic (if deployed in same region as the customer subscription) No need for complex authentication concepts. | Requires fairly complex deployment scripts. |
| SaaS | The publisher maintains complete control Can use multi-tenancy to reduce operation costs | Requires integration of fulfillment API, more complex identity management, and runs on the publisher’s tenant, making cost control more complex. Data must be moved across tenants. Multi-tenancy adds complexity to the design and operation. |
As most automotive OEMs have stringent requirements on data, we recommend using either a container or managed application offer. SaaS solutions are good options for automotive OEMs that value speed of execution. The architectural design of the SaaS solution needs to address data isolation.