We think that Terraform is an excellent IaC tool if you want to setup your cloud infrastructure. It provides you a programmatic way to build infrastructure that can be replicated across regions. However, when it comes to SaaS, we feel that it falls short on many grounds:
Time and time again, we observe organizations grappling with the right design, consequently entangled in perpetual operations. Initially, with 5 or 10 customers, everything seems promising, but as you scale, the cracks start to appear from every direction.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of Software as a Service (SaaS), navigating the path to success requires foresight, strategic planning, and an acute awareness of common pitfalls. Embarking on the journey of Software as a Service (SaaS) requires careful planning to avoid common mistakes. It's not just about setting up billing and provisioning systems.
Developing software as a service (SaaS) in today's cloud environment can be compared to creating an application for an operating system (OS). Just as developers don't concern themselves with the intricacies of CPU scheduling or memory management when writing applications for Windows or Linux, similar abstractions are needed in the cloud.
Innovation is the heartbeat of the technology industry, a relentless pursuit to deliver greater value and meet evolving customer needs.
In information technology, hardware innovations paved the way, providing the computational power needed for software development. However, the coupling of hardware and software limited customization, time to distribute, cost of delivery, and customer experience. With the introduction of the Operating System (OS), software became independent of hardware. This not only tackled distribution challenges but also fueled innovation in the software industry, giving rise to various applications like Oracle databases, the Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe Photoshop, and SAP ERP.
As we contemplated building the SaaS platform, we divided the requirements into 5 packages. If you are building a SaaS from scratch, you will likely need all the layers.
We also understand that some of you may have already started but are actively looking to accelerate your SaaS journey and scale with your current team better. Hence, we have divided the platform into 5 packages to make it easy to integrate and enable/disable specific pieces:
I was among the authors at AWS who pioneered the first SaaS control plane back in 2009, laying the groundwork for many SaaS offerings both within and beyond AWS. Crafting the SaaS control plane, we delved deep into fundamental questions:
We witness the proliferation of SaaS solutions daily — from AI applications like Private ChatGPT and infrastructure services like Snowflake, to content management systems such as WordPress, and HR management systems like Workday. The spectrum extends to customer support tools like Zendesk, customer engagement platforms like Salesforce, and collaboration solutions like Zoom, Slack, and Google Workspace. SaaS has become the prevailing distribution model in today’s software landscape and is poised to define the future of software delivery.
A business generating 200 billion dollars per year, cannot be ignored.
What kind of business are we talking about? SaaS.
Anyone offering digitally accessible software services is offering them as a SaaS.
Ok but, what is this “SaaS”?
SaaS stands for Software as a service and is the dominant software distribution model in today’s tech landscape. A typical setup in which a cloud provider is leveraged to host an application and makes it available to users exposing the service globally.
These are the main reasons why you should go for SaaS.
In today's fast-paced world of cloud computing, the importance of full lifecycle management in cloud infrastructure cannot be overstated. Many organizations are quick to provision resources in cloud platforms like AWS, GCP, and Azure, but all too often, the critical decommissioning phase is overlooked. This oversight carries both financial and security implications that can be detrimental to a company's bottom line and data integrity.