Are you having trouble integrating the SaaS model with your business? SaaS Cofounders are here to aid! Product innovation and cost optimization are the responsibilities of chief technology officers or software architects. The architecture type you select demonstrates how much control a SaaS development company has over data, infrastructure, and customization possibilities. One of the important architectures that enables you to offer client services whenever and wherever is the SaaS, or software-as-a-service, model.
Are the cost estimates weighing you down? Don’t worry! Software-as-a-service also reduces the need for routine SaaS maintenance and support tasks like buying, installing, and updating local software installations. This is how costs will reduce as well if done correctly! Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications like Dropbox and Hubspot are used by businesses everywhere to fuel their operations. However, there are additional security threats as there are more SaaS applications.
SaaS is, without a doubt, the simplest and most convenient option for businesses to profit from the cloud, but because these services are supplied online, it may be simpler for threat actors to obtain sensitive data or for data leaks to occur. In actuality, 43 percent of businesses have faced one or more SaaS misconfiguration-related security problems.
To that extent, various practices are advisable if you want successful SaaS platform development or just smooth operations.
Best Practices for SaaS Optimization to Boost Security
Under the shared responsibility model, your SaaS company is responsible for handling things like identity and access management, endpoint security, data encryption, and other things. Your cloud provider will safeguard your cloud infrastructure in some areas.
The good news is that several SaaS security best practices are available to help prevent your SaaS development agency from joining the ranks of just another statistic. Some of those SaaS optimization measures are:
1. Use SSO paired With MFA
Any SaaS company with more than five employees must have a single sign-on as a mandatory security measure.
You may access all SaaS services with a single login using SSO solutions like Okta, Duo, and Microsoft Azure Active Directory (AD). SSO makes managing user accounts across dozens or hundreds of suppliers much easier for IT and Security teams and makes it simpler for end users.
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), an additional key layer of SaaS security, is also considerably simpler to apply across all your accounts when using SSO. A user is prompted with MFA after logging in using SSO, for instance, to confirm the session with “something they have” (i.e., by receiving a push notification or text on their phone).
2. Use Effective Cloud Malware Scanner
SaaS cloud storage repository activity can be challenging to track and manage, making it simple for malware to slip through the cracks and into the cloud. Cloud storage scanning can help with that.
It is exactly what it says on the tin: a method of checking for viruses in cloud storage programs like Box, Google Drive, and OneDrive. Additionally, even though most cloud storage apps offer malware-scanning features, having a second-opinion scanner is crucial.
This is because your primary scanner will likely not pick up a cloud-based malware infection that your secondary scanner does. A second-opinion cloud storage scanner is a superb second line of protection for cloud storage.
Search for a third-party cloud storage scanner that gathers threats from many vendors’ repositories and scans data using a variety of anti-malware engines.
3. Manage Your Identity & SaaS Application Access
As SaaS workloads are accessed online, all hackers need to gain access to administrative control are your credentials. Each user in a cloud environment has unique responsibilities and permissions limiting access to various sections of the cloud.
Strong Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies are crucial for cloud security. A SaaS company can manage permissions and access for users of cloud resources using identity and access management.
IAM can be viewed as a framework of procedures, rules, and technological advancements rather than as a single facet of SaaS software. Among the IAM recommended practices are:
- Eliminating inactive accounts
- Granting advanced access only to those who require it
- Implementing stringent password guidelines
Most well-known cloud data breaches begin with compromised passwords or incorrectly set IAM policies.
Researchers discovered that weak password usage constituted 53 percent, and permitting password reuse came in second and third place, respectively, with IAM misconfigurations accounting for 65 percent of reported cloud data breaches.
Best Practices for SaaS Development
Let’s look at how using SaaS solutions and some of these best practices might help your business.
1. Microservices vs. Monolithic Architecture
SaaS developers frequently vouch for the monolithic architectural method. In a monolithic system, it is believed that you can develop, patch, or make changes without impacting the entire application. It is an excellent idea if you’re not building a whole production environment utilizing a monolithic approach. Making modifications later is frequently difficult. Therefore, choosing a microservices design will anticipate the expansion of your SaaS company.
Organizations may decouple applications into a set of data and services that you can deploy, test, and patch separately, thanks to the microservices design. Consider the case of Netflix. For billing, watch histories, suggestions, detecting devices to enhance the viewing experience, and applying copyright to all of its assets, the most popular streaming service makes use of many microservices.
With microservices, many specialized teams can oversee isolated services, each of which can be programmed in a different language and deployed on a different infrastructure.
2. Shifting To SaaS Operations
A paradigm shift occurs when businesses become SaaS companies, affecting people, technology, and business procedures. Organizations must offer SaaS applications as a service regardless of location, industry, or services once they switch to SaaS development. The end users don’t anticipate pointing it to function properly because they paid for a fully managed service that complies with all requirements.
SaaS-based software eliminates the need for time-consuming installations, high-quality upkeep, customer support, and frequent updates. These initiatives impact sales, finances, and operations. As a result, becoming a SaaS provider forces businesses to become more cost-effective, coherent, and centrally managed.
3. Multi-Tenant Building
You can use multi-tenant architecture to distribute computing resources across numerous clients as a SaaS company. When a single-tenant environment is superior to a multi-user environment, there are fewer instances of resources that are involved. Here are two strategies for implementing a multi-tenant approach for any regular SaaS company.
End users will be forced to access many databases simultaneously when using a single instance of an application that uses multiple databases. It makes it possible for each database to reach a predetermined usage level before switching users to another database. As a result, businesses scale more effectively while giving users greater resources. The strategy, however, necessitates a substantial initial investment because businesses demand additional resources.
In contrast, employing a single instance of the program and a single database enables all end users to access the same database until it is full before being redirected to a different one. Although this deployment method is quicker and less expensive for the average SaaS company, it hinders scaling and app performance.
Conclusion
A proficient SaaS company will know all the right tactics to equip your applications with the potential for success so that you can go through centralization to SaaS smoothly. SaaS Cofounders has a team of SaaS development experts that can guide you and execute all the right schemes to ensure the success of your software-as-a-service projects.