SAAS (Software as a Service) Platform Architecture
Software as a service is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. Users can access it with the help of web browsers.
SaaS is a common delivery model for many business applications, including office and messaging software, management software,virtualization etc. It is part of the nomenclature of cloud computing, along with infrastructure as a service(IaaS), platform as a service(PaaS), desktop as a service(DaaS).
It is associated with the application service providers (ASPs) which provides “shrink-wrap” applications to business users over the Internet. Early Internet-delivered software had features similar to on-premise applications compared to SaaS applications. Because these were originally built as single-tenant applications, their ability to share data was limited. SaaS applications are single-instance, multi-tenant architecture that provide a feature-rich experience competitive with on-premise applications. Aggregator bundles SaaS offerings from different vendors and offers them as part of a unified application platform.
The SaaS provider hosts the application and data centrally — deploying patches . They upgrade to the application transparently, delivering access to end users over the Internet. Many vendors provide API’s that developers use for creating composite applications. It contains various security mechanisms for Data security during transmission and storage.
SAAS Architecture:
With this model, a single version of the application, with a single configuration is used for all customers. The application is installed on multiple machines to support scalability (called horizontal scaling). In some cases, a second version of the application is set up to offer a select group of customers with access to pre-release versions of the applications for testing purposes. In this traditional model, each version of the application is based on a unique code. Although an exception , some SaaS solutions do not use multitenancy, to cost-effectively manage a large number of customers in place. Whether multitenancy is a necessary component for … continue reading
