Skip to main content

SAAS – Scalability Challenges



Scalability is a desirable property of any SAAS based architecture to have the ability to handle growing amounts of work in a graceful manner. Typically there can be two types of scalability issues- increase in load and administrative scalability.
SAAS Architecture
saas-overview
Different Tiers
 
• Data Storage Tier
• Data Access Tier
• Application Tier
 o Identity Management 
   . Separate Identity Management solution.
   . Authentication using LDAP.
   . Sun Java Identity Management Suite2 /
           Microsoft Active Directory.
 o  Application server
   . What frame-work to use.
 o  Integration Server
   . How the corporations integrate to
     the existing data sources.
   . Build a Web Service API to interact
     with Corporate data source.
   . Enterprise integration Server (EI)
     for corporate data access.
   . Host an EI Server.
   .  Need to handle the data security for
     each corporations security needs.
 o   Scalable Communication Server
   . Inbound and outbound communication.
   . Notify data changes.
   . SMTP (email), SMPP (SMS), SNPP (pager)
 o   Other Services using ESB
• Distribution Tier
 o   Distribution of Load to
     different servers (load balancers).
• User Tier
• Administration
 o   Metering, invoicing and payment processing
 o   Handle within the same SAAS system
     or a different system.
 o   Can be outsourced if this is a
     separate sub-system
 o   Monitor Resource Usage, back-up, recovery
 o   How does the support work.
   . Need a 24/4 support.
   . Need to integrate with a ticketing system
       to track the issues and resolutions.
   . Help- online video, discussion groups,
       knowledge base, user groups


A well-designed SaaS application must be scalable to a large number of servers, each running one or more identical instances of the application. The following are some of the design guidelines:



  • SaaS applications, which often use the same databases to serve thousands of customers, are particularly susceptible performance degradation, and therefore it's important to plan adequately for growth. One fairly simple way to scale a database is through partitioning, dividing the data into smaller "chunks" in order to improve the efficiency of queries and updates. Consider developing a partitioning strategy to determine the best way to partition your data.


  • Write your database operations in such a way as to maximize concurrency and minimize exclusive locking. For example, don't lock records when performing read-only operations.


  • Design the application to conduct I/O operations asynchronously, so that the application can perform useful work while waiting for input and output to complete.


  • Pool resources such as threads, network connections, and database connections; this helps maximize your computing resources, and it improves your ability to predict resource usage.




    • Labels

    Labels:

    Comments

    Post a Comment

    Popular posts from this blog

    SAAS Simple Maturity Model

    There are two architectural models – commonly referred as SAAS Maturity models- that describe the transition of a service to what is called Multi-tenant efficient, highly scalable application. The SAAS Maturity model described by Microsoft has four distinct stages and is illustrated below. Another similar well-known model for SaaS-maturity is known as Forrester-model but adds another stage known as "Dynamic Business Apps-as-a-service". The three key Attributes of a SAAS Architecture: Configurability: Metadata used to configure the way the application behaves for customers Multi-tenant Efficiency : Maximizing the sharing of resources across tenants Scalability: Maximizing concurrency, resource efficiency SAAS Simple Maturity Model (Microsoft, 2006) SaaS Maturity Model (Forres...
    Post a Comment
    Read more

    CXF Example –Web Service Using Spring and Maven

    Apache CXF is an open source services framework. CXF helps you build Web Services using frontend programming APIs, like JAX-WS and JAX-RS. These services can speak a variety of protocols such as SOAP, XML/HTTP, RESTful HTTP, or CORBA and work over a variety of transports such as HTTP, JMS or JBI. Support for bottom up approach and top down approach. Support for Standards JAX-WS, JSR-181, SAAJ, JAX-RS SOAP 1.1, 1.2, WS-I BasicProfile, WS-Security, WS-Addressing, WS-RM, WS-Policy WSDL 1.1 MTOM Building Web Services – Example 1 Develop a simple Web Service using CXF framework. The example in this case is an InterestRate Service. Tools / technologies Version CXF 2.1 Maven 2.0 Tomcat apache-tomcat-6.0.24 JDK java version 1.6.0_20       The Application Scope The "Interest Rate Service" application demonstrates how easily you can develop a Web Service using CXF frame work. The WSDL service definition defines three operations. Below is the InterestRateService interface.   @WebS...
    2 comments
    Read more

    What is an ESB?

    ESB is another of these amorphous terms that means different things to different people. An ESB can be thought of as the next generation of Service Oriented Architecture. Everybody knows web services today, and they have been used extensively to allow companies to break the tyranny of proprietary architectures. Now you can wire applications to service providers without having to know or worry about the provider's underlying operating system or programming language. It is an architectural concept/construct - not a technology, despite some vendors (and even gartner) telling you otherwise. You'll find many different types of technology can fulfil the conceptual role of an ESB, hence be careful not to associate it with a particular technology. Therefore designing the architecture is more important than choosing a 'product'. An Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is the "backbone" of the service-oriented architectural model which allows different protocols to be communica...
    Post a Comment
    Read more