SaaS architecture pitfalls: Lessons from the field (SAS305)

Key Takeaways

Promise of SAS

  • Maintaining agility and flexibility for teams
  • Continuing to focus on delivering innovation for customers
  • Maintaining operational efficiency
  • Achieving sustainable growth and profitability

Pitfalls and Learnings

1. Out of Control

  • Importance of having a control plane to manage SAS at scale
  • SAS Builder Toolkit (SBT) as an open-source solution to build the control plane
  • Standardization and pluggability of SBT for different components

2. Identity Crisis

  • Differentiating identity management for the control plane and application plane
  • Avoiding tenant mapping by using Cognito user pools and JWT tokens
  • Implementing row-level security using AWS IAM and ABAC
  • Considering federated identity and frictionless onboarding

3. Leaving Out the Microscope

  • Importance of observability for different roles (cost management, troubleshooting, product development, security, and compliance)
  • Using OpenTelemetry for flexibility and integrating with third-party observability tools
  • Ensuring tenant context in all observability data

4. Revenue Leakage

  • Implementing resilient and flexible billing with event-driven architecture
  • Tracking and avoiding revenue leakage through usage monitoring and entitlement management
  • Considering free trial experiences and the "last mile of pricing"

5. Failing to Fail

  • Importance of comprehensive testing, including policies, artificial tenants, and load testing
  • Using chaos engineering tools like Gremlin to introduce failures and test resilience

6. Not Anticipating More Complex Deployments

  • Addressing customer demands for deploying infrastructure in their own accounts
  • Exploring solutions like customer-managed keys, Nitro Enclaves, data privacy vaults, and remote agents
  • Ensuring observability and control across these complex deployment models

Upcoming Sessions

  • SAS 406: SAS Builder Toolkit (Todd Golding) - Tomorrow, 12:30 PM
  • SAS 304: SAS Builder Toolkit Workshop - Tomorrow

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