Building Multi-Tenant SaaS Architectures

Chapter 1. The SaaS Mindset

I’ve worked with a number of teams that were building software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions. When I sit down with them to map out their path to SaaS, they tend to start out with what seems like a reasonable, high-level view of what it means to be SaaS. However, as I go a layer deeper and get into the details of their solution, I often discover significant variations in their vision. Imagine, for example, someone telling you they want to construct a building. While we all have some notion of a building having walls, windows, and doors, the actual nature of these structures can vary wildly. Some teams might be envisioning a skyscraper, and others might be building a house.

It’s kind of natural for there to be confusion around what SaaS looks like. As is the case in all technology realms, the SaaS universe is continually evolving. The emergence of the cloud, shifting customer needs, and the economics of the software domain are in constant motion. How we defined SaaS yesterday may not be the way we’ll define it today. The other part of the challenge here is that the scope of SaaS goes well beyond the technical. It is, in many respects, a mindset that spans all the dimensions of a SaaS provider’s organization.

With that in mind, the natural place to start this journey is by clarifying how I define SaaS and how I think this definition shapes our approach to architecting, designing, and building a SaaS solution. The goal in this chapter is to build a foundational ...