Modernizing Core Infrastructure for AI-Ready SaaS Applications

Chapter 2. The Importance of Application Delivery

Modern SaaS applications are more than code and business logic. They are deeply intertwined with the infrastructure and services that deliver them to end users. When someone uses a SaaS application, they are not simply “calling an app.” Rather, they are engaging a complex delivery system designed to deliver the business logic of the application, while optimizing security, availability, performance, and reliability.

The application delivery infrastructure bridges the gap between the user and the application business logic. This infrastructure “bridge” is not an afterthought; it is a vital part of the overall product offering.

What are the frontend components that power a SaaS application delivery?

Application Delivery Fabric: The Hidden Backbone

When a SaaS customer logs in and uses your application, what they experience as seamless interactivity is actually the result of many interconnected systems operating behind the scenes. These include:

• Load balancers distribute traffic across multiple computation resources.

• Web application firewalls (WAFs) protect your application against malicious inputs and attacks.

• Reverse proxies route, rewrite, and otherwise optimize your customers’ requests.

• TLS terminators handle the secure communications channel between your application servers and your customers’ browsers. They off-load the compute-intensive cryptographic calculations to non-business-logic resources.

• DNS provides the addressability ...