Raghu Ramdas
asked on
How to build a SAAS Platform from ground up
Hi Experts,
By the time I read all of your valuable feedback in the coming days , I am hoping to haver a concrete idea of how I can come up with an action plan for the challenge at hand.
Basically, I have been tasked to come up with the following to build a new SAAS Tool which will have Team collaboration features like commenting, sharing on Data which is connected to the Customer's CRM systems like Salesforce and MS Dynamics.. I am not sharing some custom features due to NDA which will make it unique to customers / users who may already be using BI / Analytics tools online.
This tool will be a typical SAAS Platform have Multiple tenants and each tenant can then have their own instance and data separate from others and give their employees access permissions etc.
1) On what platform / Programming languages should this be build on in order to get scalability, security and performance
2) How should I go about creating the Architecture. Any books , resources which you can recommend as a starting point
3) What are the different costs associated for creating a SAAS tool.. One time costs as well as Ongoing Operational costs?
4) If I have to hire a team, is this the best initial structure wherein we have a: Cloud Architect , Project manager, UI/UX Designer, 1-3 Developers ranging in experience and seniority from different parts of the world and take advantage of the time differences to get more work done in a day.
5) Any other information I may have missed which is crucial in formulating a decision to develop the SAAS Tool
I appreciate that I could provide more detail but in the interest of keeping it slightly generic, I have asked some pertinent questions above.
Many thanks in Advance for giving me your valuable feedback.
By the time I read all of your valuable feedback in the coming days , I am hoping to haver a concrete idea of how I can come up with an action plan for the challenge at hand.
Basically, I have been tasked to come up with the following to build a new SAAS Tool which will have Team collaboration features like commenting, sharing on Data which is connected to the Customer's CRM systems like Salesforce and MS Dynamics.. I am not sharing some custom features due to NDA which will make it unique to customers / users who may already be using BI / Analytics tools online.
This tool will be a typical SAAS Platform have Multiple tenants and each tenant can then have their own instance and data separate from others and give their employees access permissions etc.
1) On what platform / Programming languages should this be build on in order to get scalability, security and performance
2) How should I go about creating the Architecture. Any books , resources which you can recommend as a starting point
3) What are the different costs associated for creating a SAAS tool.. One time costs as well as Ongoing Operational costs?
4) If I have to hire a team, is this the best initial structure wherein we have a: Cloud Architect , Project manager, UI/UX Designer, 1-3 Developers ranging in experience and seniority from different parts of the world and take advantage of the time differences to get more work done in a day.
5) Any other information I may have missed which is crucial in formulating a decision to develop the SAAS Tool
I appreciate that I could provide more detail but in the interest of keeping it slightly generic, I have asked some pertinent questions above.
Many thanks in Advance for giving me your valuable feedback.
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Hi Raghu,
Glad I could help. I wish you all the best and feel free to ask more questions any time you need more information.
Regards,
Chinmay.
Glad I could help. I wish you all the best and feel free to ask more questions any time you need more information.
Regards,
Chinmay.
Good question, excellent comments.
I would like to add a small insight to your decision process.
You said this about multi-tenancy:
There are 2 interpretations of multi-tenancy in SaaS.
In the first, the separation between tenants is achieved by separation at the VM and database level. You essentially spin up a new application environment for each tenant.
In the second, the separation between tenants is achieved with application logic. You will have a cluster of computing processes that scales out and in to serve all of the tenants.
This really depends on existing application specs, security requirements, and cost projections.Option 1 is much more expensive to run, but provides a clear separation between data and processes.
I would like to add a small insight to your decision process.
You said this about multi-tenancy:
This tool will be a typical SAAS Platform have Multiple tenants and each tenant can then have their own instance and data separate from others and give their employees access permissions etc.
There are 2 interpretations of multi-tenancy in SaaS.
In the first, the separation between tenants is achieved by separation at the VM and database level. You essentially spin up a new application environment for each tenant.
In the second, the separation between tenants is achieved with application logic. You will have a cluster of computing processes that scales out and in to serve all of the tenants.
This really depends on existing application specs, security requirements, and cost projections.Option 1 is much more expensive to run, but provides a clear separation between data and processes.
ASKER
This feedback has been very helpful. I now know where to focus on to get me started and will sure come back for any further advise during this journey.
Many thanks for your help.