Next generation SaaS: Scale, resilience, and operational efficiency (PEX304)

Next Generation of SaaS

Understanding SaaS Complexities

  • Building a SaaS application starts simple, but complexity creeps in as the application scales to more customers.
  • Challenges include:
    • Managing configuration vs. customization
    • Onboarding and deployment processes
    • Tenant provisioning and routing
    • Offboarding and resource cleanup

DevOps Challenges in SaaS

  • Configuration management using tools like Helm, Terraform, and Flux
  • Tenant onboarding and maintaining per-tenant configurations
  • Deployment pipelines and managing infrastructure outputs
  • Serverless solutions also introduce complexities around tenant provisioning and state tracking

Towards Next Generation SaaS Operations

  • Idea of a "digital twin" to represent the state of the control plane and its components
  • Using durable workflows like Temporal to manage the lifecycle of SaaS components
  • Potential benefits:
    • Maintaining state of accounts, cells, tenants, and their configurations
    • Automating provisioning, scaling, and rebalancing
    • Simplifying the DevOps story

Relational Database Challenges in SaaS

  • Difficulties with multi-tenant isolation models, sharding, and schema management
  • Need for API-driven experiences and easier developer experiences

Emerging Solutions

  • Aurora Serverless and its Data API for simplified connection pooling
  • NeonDB for versioned databases, tenant-specific data, and on-demand scaling
  • Aurora Limitless for automated sharding based on tenant data

Generative AI in SaaS

  • Honeycomb.io's use of NLP to simplify observability for end-users
  • Potential for multi-tenant solutions that leverage tenant-specific knowledge bases
  • Towards more proactive, agentic SaaS platforms that can learn and automate troubleshooting

Upcoming Sessions at re:Invent

  • SaaS-focused sessions, workshops, and builder sessions throughout the week
  • Encourage attendees to provide feedback through session surveys

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