SaaS architecture has evolved significantly over the past decade. Past approaches focused on basic application security, scalability challenges, and self-hosted deployments. Present approaches emphasize cloud infrastructure, multi-tenant design, configurable user interfaces, analytics, and deployment options like public clouds. Modern best practices include flexible, modular architectures and unified solutions to develop and manage the entire SaaS lifecycle.

1. SaaS Architecture
Past and Present

2. The “SaaS” Effect
• SaaS has clearly proved critics that it is here to stay for a long
time
• Increase in SaaS adoption as well as the new technology
innovations such as cloud has significantly evolved SaaS
architecture
• In this presentation we will take a look back and see what
constituted SaaS architecture then and what constitutes now
www.techcello.com SaaS Architecture – Past and Present

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Infrastructure Security
Topic Past Approaches Present Approaches
Infrastructure Security Security Policies Offered By Cloud
Security Audits
Firewall
Anti-spam
SSL
Cloud infrastructure has clearly dominated the thought process of
infrastructure setup
Infact, ISVs moving to SaaS model (from on-premise) for first time
had a tough time in coping up to managing infrastructure
Today cloud infrastructure has reduced a big burden from the
shoulders of IT teams
SaaS Architecture – Past and Present

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Application Security
Topic Past Approaches Present Approaches
Application Security Form based authentication
SSO with AD/ OpenID/ WS-
Federation
Role based Control Multifactor authentication
Claim based identity
Granular privileges
Row and Field level privileges
Tenant based ACL
OAuth based access
User Audits and Event Audits
Transactional change audit
and Analysis
OWASP Standards
Earlier Application security was merely handling authentication and
role based access control. However, in today’s world security has
spawned in to much bigger area with lot more emphasis on security
SaaS Architecture – Past and Present

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Scalability
Topic Past Approaches Present Approaches
Scalability Load balanced Webservers Elasticity
Sharded database
Asynchronous operations
Cloudwatch/Azurewatch
NoSql database
Distributed Caching
Scalability was one of the under estimated non-functional
requirements in the past
Several products were successful but not sustainable due to
limitations on the scale (ex: Orkut)
Today cloud has intelligence to scale up and down the infrastructure
without the need for any manual intervention.
SaaS Architecture – Past and Present

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Availability, Performance and Integration
Topic Past Approaches Present Approaches
Availability DB Replication and Failover
Multi availability zone
database failover
Multi availability zone
application failover
Performance 5-10 seconds Subsecond
Integration Excel Import Rest services
Excel Export Webhooks
DB Replication and failover has to be thought through from a multi
availability zone perspective
Systems are expected to work in subsecond response time
Open integration services like REST and Webhooks are preferred
over black box excel imports
SaaS Architecture – Past and Present

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Configurability and Analytics
Topic Past Approaches Present Approaches
Configurability Custom code Configurable Workflow
White Labelling Configurable UI
Configurable Logos and
Themes
Configurable Forms and Grids
Analytics BI Big Data
No more hardcoding – people have learnt it the “hard” way
Anything that can potentially change from customer to customer is
now made configurable
Internet has witnessed a tremendous amount of data growth, which
has rendered traditional BI Analytics tool not useful as Big Data
SaaS Architecture – Past and Present

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User Interface
Topic Past Approaches Present Approaches
User Interface Html and CSS HTML5.0
Flash/Applet/Silverlight SPA
Javascript frameworks
Realtime updates
Responsive Design
CSS Framework
Native Apps
In today’s world UI can make or break a product
Web pages almost work as desktop screens with immediate and
interactive responses
Viewing is no more restricted to PCs. Therefore, a responsive design
is mandatory to enable product access across multiple devices
SaaS Architecture – Past and Present

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Manageability and Tenancy
Topic Past Approaches Present Approaches
Manageability ‘N’ layered architecture Dependency Injection
Exception logging AOP based instrumentation
Cloud log management service
MVC/MVVM
Tenancy ASP Model Multi tenant Architecture
Single Tenant Tenant Hierarchy
Support for reseller
management
Systems today are built with flexible architectures to support easy
integration with diversified set of external systems
Multi tenancy is becoming a defacto standard of building SaaS
applications
SaaS Architecture – Past and Present

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Customer Service and Deployment
Topic Past Approaches Present Approaches
Customer Service
Implementation and
Operations Team
Self service
Deployment Self-Hosting Virtualization
MSP Public Cloud
Private Cloud
Hybrid
Management
Application Lifecycle
Management (ALM)
SaaS Lifecycle Management
(SLCM)
Self servicing features are included as part of the SaaS product to
reduce support load (and cost)
Wide range of deployment options are supported today
ISVs are moving towards a unified way of approaching their SaaS
business using SaaS Lifecycle Management (SLCM)
SaaS Architecture – Past and Present

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SaaS Architecture – Best way forward
SaaS architectures have grown leaps and bounds in the last decade.
Today SaaS space is flooded with numerous options for SaaS
application development.
More importantly people have started looking for unified solutions
(like TechCello’s SaaS Starter Kit) that can tie all the above pieces
together.
Techcello's SaaS Multi Tenant architecture encapsulates all the
above areas in to a SaaS Starter Kit and continues to be the fastest
way to build SaaS product for ISVs.
To read more about it click here.
SaaS Architecture – Past and Present

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About TechCello
Techcello is a cloud-ready, SaaS Application
Development Framework
Can be used to,
Build new SaaS products
Convert single-tenant Apps to Multi-Tenant
Migrate on premise products to SaaS model
Cello framework is delivered as a set of libraries and
APIs that can be easily integrated to your product
Applications built using Cello can be deployed in
any cloud
Cello contains building blocks for developing,
monetizing and servicing your SaaS offering.
SaaS Architecture – Past and Present

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TechCello – Flexible Architecture
TechCello supports all models of database multi-tenancy, there by allowing ISVs
to operate in a hybrid model.
TechCello offers an end to end SaaS Life Cycle Management Solution that can
help in designing, developing and managing the operations of your SaaS
product.
Using TechCello you can simply focus on building your product functionalities,
and TechCello can take care of the rest.
TechCello is tested and proven SaaS Framework, built exclusively to meet the
typical SaaS needs of your business and product.
TechCello offers more than 30+ modules covering all the basic engineering
blocks and operational modules.
Apart from saving significant amount of cost, your precious time can be well
spent on differentiating your product from competitors through unique product
features.
SaaS Architecture – Past and Present

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Contact Us
http://www.techcello.com
sales@techcello.com
SaaS Architecture – Past and Present