Component-oriented executable meta-model for SaaS applications

SaaS (software as a service) is becoming an increasingly prevalent software delivery model. Customization is a prominent characteristic of SaaS applications, but traditional SaaS applications lack of the customizability, or only achieve selective configuration on functional modules. Based on the MOF (Meta Object Facility) theory, this paper designs component-oriented meta-model which provides automatic conversion between the platform related model and the code. The proposed model consists of four components, which are data meta-model, UI meta-model, business meta-model and authorization meta-model. Finally this paper introduces a CRM (Custom Relationship Management) development and customization to elaborate the usage of the component-meta-model. It demonstrates that our meta-model could build SaaS applications quickly and efficiently.