Meet SaaS Runtime, which simplifies SaaS delivery.
AI-driven hyper-personalization, the emergence of specialised vertical solutions, and the no-code revolution are all driving the explosive growth in demand for software as a service (SaaS)-based solutions. However, for aspiring SaaS providers, creating and growing a profitable SaaS might be intimidating. In order to satisfy performance and reliability requirements, challenges include managing thousands of instances, generating personalised experiences, and navigating a variety of infrastructure. These administrative responsibilities can divert attention from what really counts, which is creating and providing outstanding client experiences.
SaaS Runtime, a fully managed Google Cloud service management platform designed to help SaaS companies streamline and automate the complicated infrastructure operations so they can concentrate on their main business, was unveiled at Google Cloud Next 25. SaaS Runtime, which is based on Google’s in-house infrastructure for servicing millions of customers across several tenants, makes advantage of the vast experience in service management at Google scale. With automation at its heart, SaaS Runtime offers a robust suite of tools to manage at scale, speeds up deployments, and simplifies operations while assisting you in modelling your SaaS ecosystem.
Google Cloud goal with SaaS Runtime is to enable software suppliers to:
- Quickly launch, modify, and iterate: SaaS Runtime gives you access to pre-made, adaptable blueprints that enable swift deployment and iteration. straightforward data model abstractions make it straightforward to incorporate AI architectural blueprints into current systems.
- Fully managed SaaS Runtime automates operations and monitors and scales tenants. In order to streamline service administration, tenant observability, and operations across cloud and edge environments, you should first enrol to SaaS Runtime and then grow your existing continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline.
- SaaS Runtime is tightly connected with the Google Cloud environment, allowing for quick integration, optimisation, and growth. The new Application Design Centre allows developers to create apps, sell them on Google Cloud Marketplace, and use Cloud Observability and App Hub to track how well they function after being distributed across tenants. Rapid integration, optimisation, and scalability are made possible by this integrated architecture, which gives developers a single application-layer view enhanced with complete business information.
How SaaS Runtime works: Model, Deploy, Operate
SaaS Runtime streamlines the three-step Model, Deploy, and Operate process, making SaaS lifecycle management easier.
Let’s say you wish to provide an Inventory Management Application (IMS) as a Software as a Service (SaaS) to help retail companies forecast demand, optimise inventory, and save waste at each of their locations. You want to provide several price tiers and add AI capabilities to your application as a SaaS provider.
Model
As the SaaS provider, you may begin by utilising the opinionated data model of the SaaS Runtime to define or import the SaaS architecture. The opinionated model structure of SaaS Runtime allows you to bundle components that deploy and update together into distinct blueprints, allowing SaaS companies that want to utilise SaaS Runtime to scale to reuse their current architecture. By abstracting the intricacies of the infrastructure and application, this methodical approach enables you to optimise for dependability and performance.
First, import Terraform modules from well-known source repositories (such as GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket) to generate a blueprint. The SaaS solution is built using these blueprints, which also enable scaling to thousands of tenant instances simple.
A layered, two-blueprint structure a basic infrastructure blueprint and a dependent IMS application blueprint would be used for the Inventory Management SaaS scenario in order to provide autonomous deployments and quick iterations. Although there are two blueprints in this example, SaaS Runtime’s modular blueprint concept enables you to accomplish a variety of business objectives while maintaining dependability.
Deploy
By automating provisioning and coordinating blueprints, SaaS Runtime contributes to their dependability and consistency. SaaS Runtime produces two releases, one for the Base and one for the IMS blueprints, in order to implement the Inventory Management SaaS.
As the SaaS provider, you can now use the releases you made, each with the customisations each retailer needs, to supply an instance of Inventory Management SaaS (Tenant Instance) for each store.
Operate
As the SaaS provider, you can oversee, monitor, and improve your SaaS operations with the help of SaaS Runtime’s extensive service management capabilities. With these tools, you can:
- Roll out current versions at scale: Make advantage of the rollout feature to provide the Base and IMS releases to every merchant. Choose one release at a time, then distribute it to every renter simultaneously. For safer and more dependable rollouts, you may also roll out to a single region at a time.
- Bring out fresh releases: Create an AI blueprint based on the IMS blueprint to deploy an Inventory Management SaaS application upgrade with a new feature. AI feature, such Dynamic Pricing Optimisation. Make a fresh release and distribute it to all or a subset of store tenants.
- Implement new features using functionality Flag configuration: SaaS Runtime’s Feature Flag functionality may be used to implement new features, such promotional pricing, to certain store tenants. Without releasing a fresh binary update, you may activate the functionality by setting the “PromoPricing” flag’s settings to true.
- Actively track and manage rollout and deployment progress. Before implementing your rollout for all of your tenants, you may test its functionality and dependability on a limited number of instances of your SaaS. You may also see how your rollouts are doing throughout all of the areas and tenants. You may always halt or restart the rollout, cancel it, roll it back, or choose to roll it out at a later time if there are problems.
Start now
Software businesses may swiftly expand and innovate their SaaS products to SaaS Runtime. It allows you to create complex SaaS utilising a simplified three-step procedure, like the Inventory Management Application example.Each layer may be rapidly iterated and developed independently to the platform’s decomposable blueprint concept. When these designs are implemented, each tenant may have a customised experience. Last but not least, SaaS Runtime provides exact control over version and feature rollouts across various tenant populations, streamlining operational complexity at scale.
The SaaS Runtime from Google Cloud is available in preview to streamline and automate your SaaS administration.