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