How To Build A Cloud-based Saas Application
Table of Content 1. Introduction 2. What are SaaS applications? 3. How to create a Cloud-based SaaS application?
- Market research and competitor analysis
- Devise the application as a collection of service
- Offer reliable services to your customers
- Decouple the data
- Select a technology stack
- Find SaaS developers
- Wrapping Up
Introduction
Cloud-based SaaS is a new sales model replacing traditional software licenses and provides software solutions to businesses on a subscription basis. It is one of the most popular and admired industry trends in recent times as it is widely used by businesses to develop a SaaS app according to their requirements. According to a recent survey, it is reported that more than 80% of small businesses and startups have started investing in developing a SaaS product that is expected to generate a market share of 105 billion USD by the end of 2022.
Nowadays, more and more SaaS applications are developed by businesses and it is growing super-fast in the industry attracting more people and companies. These institutions are more floating applications in the cloud and have some important benefits and risks as well.
Do you remember heading to an electronics shop to purchase software and requesting a physical CD online? But now the technology has changed drastically. Today, the software industry is overpowered by the SaaS delivery and pricing model. In the tech media, SaaS is a popular topic which is the main reason behind writing this article and sharing some insights regarding the SaaS web applications.
Have you ever wondered why SaaS is popular among both custom software development companies and users? How is it developed? In this post, we're going to discuss how to develop a Cloud-based SaaS application. So without any further ado, let's get started!
What are SaaS Applications?
SaaS applications allow users to connect and use cloud-based applications over the Internet and offer notable savings for various reasons. It eradicates the cost of purchase/installation and ongoing costs like maintenance. So it is better to download and maintain your SaaS product easily rather than investing a huge amount of money on hardware installations.
With SaaS applications, businesses can get various benefits including increased scalability, lower upfront costs, business growth, instant updates to all users, software integration, and much more. You can start working from that fuzzy cloud computing environment that everyone is talking about, without using a public domain.
You can easily and securely share applications with those within your organization. Google Apps, ZenDesk, dropbox, Bigommerce, Slack, etc are examples of SaaS applications.
How to Create a Cloud-based SaaS application?
1. Market research and competitor analysis
The initial step to consider while developing a cloud-based SaaS application is identifying your competitors and doing market research. Business Owners and web developers get so mopped up in the hype that they fail to verify their project idea and illustrate their competitors. When you define your competitors and if they're genuinely doing well, then there's nothing wrong in figuring out about their secret behind it, their journey, and how they actually started. By doing this, you'll get more confidence and a practical approach to success.
2. Devise the application as a collection of service
A cloud-based SaaS application is deployed as a collection of cloud services that are combined into composite services. This is a service-oriented structure, as its essence. While building a cloud-based application architecture, you have to deal with complex distributed systems that benefit from loosely coupled applications built on many services.
Developers manage to build tightly coupled applications that concentrate more on the UI rather than exposing the underlying functions that they can leverage independently. You can separate services of applications physically, executing on the proper machine instance that provides services directories that can be used to track the services that make up your application.
3. Offer reliable services to your customers
A cloud-based SaaS model requires you to provide consistent service. Once customers plan to sign up for the subscription, they’re not willing to pay the amount. Here we have a real-world example of when and where a SaaS product doesn't work well. While searching for a way to transform files between two specific types where file type was not proprietary, I figured I can find a simple online converter that would help me to get the job done without investing a penny into it. But I found numerous converters that have moved to a SaaS-based model that requires customers to register for a monthly subscription to convert my file which was not great at all. Because just to convert one single file, I have to sign up for a monthly subscription for this software and pay a few dollars to use it just once.
A SaaS business model is suitable if it benefits a wide audience. It is not beneficial when a product demands a large user base.
4. Decouple the data
If you combine the data within the application, it won't find a suitable place in the cloud. Clouds are complex distributed systems that work great with app structures that break out processing and data into different segments. Data is decoupled for the same reason you want to create the application out of services and processes on any public or private cloud instance.
You must take performance into consideration. Database reads and writes across the Internet can generate latency, and database contacts may clinch how close your information poses to the services that need to leverage it. Make sure you're using caching systems as they provide additional database performance by storing commonly accessed data, thereby facilitating all database read requests to the physical database.
5. Select a technology stack
It is important to choose the right technology stack that is suitable to your business requirements. A tech stack is what you'll use to build and run your app. You'll need some development tools for client-facing components such as JavaScript frameworks (Vue, Angular, React), HTML, and CSS.
For server-side development, you can choose from PHP, Ruby, and JavaScript. For developing a SaaS product, having a database for back-end data storage is necessary. PostgreSQL and MySQL are the two primary relational databases used by many developers. Lastly, choose a server for your application. It can be Apache or Ngnix.
6. Find SaaS developers
Developing a cloud-based SaaS product for your business in today's rapidly changing digital era is a challenging task for developers. Some core benefits provided by SaaS are support, constant updates, feature integrations, and much more.
If you're not prepared about making a long-term commitment to product development and maintenance, it would be a great idea to hire an experienced and dedicated development team that will help you to achieve your business goals and tailor your business requirements.
Wrapping Up
In this post, we discussed 6 steps to build a cloud-based SaaS application. According to your requirements and the niche that you're targeting, metrics may vary including the cost and technology stack. Various popular brands are generating impressive revenues using their captivating SaaS application due to the benefits it offers.
If you are planning to build a SaaS product and need some guidance in your industry requirements then feel free to get in touch with us and ask your queries in the comment section given below.
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