SaaS Development

The deployment of Software as a Service or SaaS should be guided with business requirements, timelines and objectives that are clearly defined. Understanding these for a successful outcome is key.
Besides the formation of an able delivery team, defining and understanding the infrastructure that is needed for the delivery of SaaS application is a significant part of successful deployment. Specifically, this pertains to the procurement of the infrastructure needed and the software required. Infrastructure enables a business to deploy Internet-based applications and SaaS more quickly, more securely, of better quality while being cost-effective, regardless of the application lifecycle or stage.
1. Understand thoroughly the SaaS offering in general. Successful deployment of SaaS entails certain areas of investigation. Questions on the on-demand application’s design with respect to its system run, accessibility, security, multiple-user service and scalability should be taken into account. It is very important to recognize the offering’s intricacies, and the challenges that may be expected from the transitioning of dedicated applications into the SaaS platform.
2. Conceive scalable services and infrastructure, and then design them. Armed with a clearer overall understanding of the SaaS application and the related service offering, an Operations Team may architect a wide-ranging infrastructure and supporting components. The infrastructure components are inclusive of a data center, network connectivity and components, security, hardware storage and systems, storage backup, and monitoring and system management tools.
3. Conduct internal reviews to examine issues of cost-benefit, with respect to building the infrastructure. Remember that the infrastructure should be able to support the businesses and application requirements of today, as opposed to long- or short-term considerations for service offering expansions and scalability. In this regard, the final decisions should include strategies relating to creation and management of SLA, scalable system or application management at a 24×7x365 basis, support for end-users, disaster recovery, scalability of application, database servers and Web, availability and performance commitments, bandwidth and network capacities, security and its management, management of monitoring, and reporting. Budget considerations should also be made, Obviously, these considerations must also be examined within the context of available budgets, while zeroing in on the ongoing operational costs to regularly maintain and update the infrastructure.
4. Determine the bandwidth requirements for the selection of hosting facilities. Hosting the infrastructure within a facility that best suits certain needs and behind the right public connectivity translates to positive end-customer experience. During bandwidth review, understanding the demographics that are related to the application is key. This is done by identifying the source of a majority of network connections with respect to end-users. Customers who access the application from their desktop computers at home may require a dissimilar approach, as compared with clients accessing from their corporate offices with high-speed and dedicated Internet connections.
5. Place the infrastructure closer to end-user communities. This will lessen network hops and elevate performance in the process. The use of several network connections to the application from tier 1 providers eliminates bottleneck issues, thereby ensuring faster application responses.
6. Consider the major components of hosting infrastructure from a third-party data hub. The key components that need to be reviewed include staffing of the data centers, possible redundancy in cooling and power, testing frequency, the security measures that are in place, and the number of Internet Service Providers that are available for connectivity purchase. Thereafter, the operations staff should ensure that the chosen ISP and facility are able to meet deployment and build as agreed upon during negotiations. This is a critical component that must not slip within the build phase.
7. Procure infrastructure components. Upon completion of its overall design, and the proven functionality and reliability, actual production of infrastructure may follow. A main set of the components should include IDS or Firewall devices, SSL and VPN units of acceleration, servers, load balancers, software, storage devices and support contracts. Selection of the right equipment is vital, in order to meet business requirements as well as scalability and uptime commitments, as guaranteed. The equipment deployment must be under high availability schemes. For majority of production infrastructures, support contracts at platinum-level must be executed with the vendors. This way, immediate response at a four-hour maximum is ensured in the event that, at any time, certain of the major components fail. At this period, the chosen hardware must be delivered within the timelines that have been set to meet the master schedule in deployment.
With infrastructure components at hand, the build-phase can start, along with the deployment of the infrastructure at specifications that have been set accordingly.