Building Scalable SaaS Architectures

Exploring microservices, containerization, and cloud-native solutions

for scaling SaaS platforms.

Introduction

Software as a service is an on demand software solution service provided over the internet to

businesses. It helps with flexible use of software and transforms how businesses operate.

Organizations increasingly rely on software as a service platforms, which leads to the challenge

of scalability arising for the software providers. This occurs when user bases expand, when

there is an increase of complex features and computations required for each individual

organization and an increase in demand for services as the business grows. This inadvertently

leads to performance issues and disruptions in services where the system servers can't keep up

with the requests made to it.

To solve this problem, Saas providers must use scalable software as a service architecture. A

few methods required to solve this problem include leveraging microservices, use of

containerization strategies and cloud native solutions.These solutions ensure a seamless and

streamlined user experience, enabling the business providers to grow sustainably over a period

of time in competitive software markets.

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Microservices Architecture and Saas scalability

Microservice architecture is an innovative solution that software companies use to solve

scalability issues. This architecture replaces the standard monolithic architecture where

software is built as one big application with individual modules forming the functionality of the

entire system.

In microservice architecture, developers approach the design of the software by breaking down

an entire application into smaller independent applications each responsible for a single

business function. Developers then build, deploy and scale each service independently of any

other service.

Teams using microservice architectures are able to work on different services at the same time

without affecting one another.

Systems that use microservices are able to allocate enough resources to specific services

without having to scale and allocate resources for the entire application. If a service experiences

a surge in web traffic, it can be scaled up without affecting the whole application. This reduces

costs in cloud server fees and improves performance for the application. At the end of the day

providing robust and reliable software solutions to customers is realized.

Examples of companies that have extremely high traffic and use microservices to provide great

service to its customers are netflix and amazon. Netflix provides video streaming services

worldwide and use microservices to manage all its features from user authentication, video

delivery, recommendations and payments. Their services can be easily scaled during peak

times to ensure smooth streaming for millions of its customers.Amazon, on the other hand, uses

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microservices to cater to millions of customers every single day on its ecommerce platform.

They use individual inventory management, payment processors and custom alerts to scale

their services based on demand throughout the day.

Microservice architecture also provides benefits when it comes to fast fault isolation and

detection. When one microservice fails, it does not bring down the whole application.This is a

great benefit since it allows for quick detection and fast maintenance response times.

Microservice architectures allow granular scaling when a service experiences high demand. If

demand goes down, containers can be removed. This improves scaling flexibility while

maintaining performance levels even during peak usage times.In contrast, traditional

applications which use Monolithic architecture have a vast reduction in scalability owing to the

fact that if one component is under heavy demand, the entire application and its environment

may need to be scaled.

Containerization and its impact on Scalability

Microservice architectures make use of containerization tools to make sure each microservice

operates regardless of where it is deployed.

Containerization is a method of packaging applications so that the application running in it has

everything it needs. This includes operating system, code, runtime libraries and system tools.

The main tools used in containerization are docker and kubernetes​

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Docker

Docker is a tool that is used to build images of applications which can be easily shared and

executed anywhere on any machine or server. It ensures consistency, predictability and

efficiency in deployment of microservice applications.

Developers use it in the creation, deployment and management of containers. Developers

package their microservices and use docker to deploy them across multiple environments.​

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is used by developers to manage deployment and operation of dockerized

applications.

Kubernetes automates distribution of containers across a cluster of machines, handles load

balancing and makes sure the desired number of container instances are up at all times.

Docker and kubernetes help organizations with managing their development processes and

increase operational efficiency.

Containerization makes deployment of software easy for developers across different operating

system environments. Each container includes its own dependencies and configurations

meaning the microservice applications will behave identically.The consistency leads to faster

deployment cycles.

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Using containers also makes it easy to allocate resources. During peak times for example, when

the software has been launched or there is a period of promotional sales, software businesses

can increase the number of running containers to handle the new user traffic. Afterwards, they

can be reduced or scaled back down. This advantage makes containerization suited for modern

business needs..

Cloud Native Solutions

Cloud native applications are built to use cloud computing’s distributed and scalable nature. This

is an approach where developers create and run applications to leverage cloud computing

platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google cloud.Using these platforms enables

businesses to create, deploy and maintain applications that grow and adapt as demand

increases.

Cloud platforms provide a method for adjusting resources based on traffic. This automatic

adjustment is called auto scaling. During high periods of demand, the platform increases the

resources and computing power at any given time and reduces them when demand decreases.

Cloud platforms provide innovative methods when it comes to abstracting away the need for

servers for software applications.This means that developers simply pay for what they use

without having to manage, scale and provision their own servers manually. This is called

serverless computing. The developers just write the code and the cloud platform takes care of

server resources.This comes in handy when there are unexpected traffic patterns. The cloud

provider during these times, provisions the necessary infrastructure and allocates and

deallocates the resources once the task is completed.This advantage in flexibility reduces

server cost and enables businesses to manage their expenses based on real time demand.

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This ultimately makes businesses more agile and competitive in today's digital landscape.

Conclusion

To sum it up, software as a service providers can scale up their platforms using microservices

and containerization effectively and ensure smooth performance during peak hours using

microservices and containerization.This gives business a huge boost in the competitive software

market and is the thin line that separates success from stagnation or worse, failure.

References

Fowler, M. (2012). Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture. Addison-Wesley.

Sharma, S. (2015). Architecting Cloud SaaS Software: The Do's and Don'ts. O'Reilly Media.

Ruppert, R., & Pitoura, E. (2014). "Scaling Cloud-Based SaaS Architectures: Challenges and

Solutions." ACM Computing Surveys.

Calleja, C. (2020). "Scalable Architectures for Multi-Tenant SaaS Applications." Journal of Cloud

Computing: Advances, Systems and Applications.

Microsoft Azure. (2021). Designing Scalable, Resilient Cloud Applications. Microsoft Azure

Architecture Center.

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Kavis, M. (2014). Architecting the Cloud: Design Decisions for Cloud Computing Service Models

(SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS). Wiley.

Netflix Technology Blog. (2015). Building Microservices: Scaling Netflix Streaming Services.

Netflix Tech Blog.

Chris Kinoti
October 2, 2024.