Talking about the implementation architecture of SAAS

Today, my big boss suddenly asked me about SAAS. It seems that you have to make up for it. For the boss, he is obviously not concerned about the concept of SAAS. In my opinion, what's more important is how to apply SaaS to practical applications of enterprises. Therefore, if you want to understand the concept of SAAS, you can search on the Internet. This article does not focus on this aspect.

In terms of implementation, SaaS and the previous ASP (Application Service Provider, ApplicationProgramProvider) is essentially the same. The architecture mentioned here is the B/S structure. That is, the browser is the client, and the business logic is all placed on the server in the thin client layer-3 mode.

The classic three-tier model does not need to be described by me. I believe everyone knows it. However, this model encountered a major problem after the promotion. The main reason is that the customer is not satisfied with the customer experience on the browser. Compared with the fat client, the browser experience does disappoint many customers.

However, with the rise of Ajax recently, many people have seen the possibility that there is a relatively complete framework for implementing clients with rich customer experience on browsers. When the concept of SAAS is put forward again, many people will also want to put pressure on it.

From ASP to SAAS, I don't know if you have noticed any changes. When Ajax was proposed, many business logic had actually been moved to the client. This is the only difference from implementing a fat client: basically every machine in the browser.

Ms clearly also saw this. In the past few years, while Microsoft has been promoting the concept of a smart client, it has quietly moved on to its most profitable software. That is its office. The current office can be installed on almost every machine. And office can execute VBA. Its scalability is inferior to that of browsers, and it also provides a better customer experience. In fact, the reason why office is accepted by customers is based on its ease of use and rich customer experience.

O/S architecture, yes, this concept has almost been formed! With the popularity of office, Microsoft has completed a B/S-like architecture. This is exactly the same idea as smart clients.

I do not want to introduce the so-called o/S architecture to you in detail. Instead, I want to introduce this concept to remind you that the concept of SAAS is not equivalent to B/S. That is to say, the implementation architecture of SAAS is not just a B/S approach.

When selecting an architecture model, we need to focus on SAAS. That is the last S: service. Your software must depend on the services provided on your network. For software vendors, the operating mode is how to provide this service continuously and stably. From the implementation point of view, a service is a service, and it is a program module to be called. So that your client depends on your service, Your SaaS model is almost the same.

In the implementation architecture of SAAS, several services must be guaranteed:

1. Service query service. Find the service.
2. Module Update Service. Updates the client module. Oneclick provided by Microsoft is a good implementation mode in this regard.
3. Service container. To provide real services.
4. Offline Update Service. Ensure data security of distributed systems.

If we want users to provide a unified operating platform, similar to IE and office, we can fully develop Saas-based applications. In fact, many online games have adopted this mode, especially online games. Do you think they are also SaaS?

Although starting from the boss's question, the concept can be better applied to practice only when the implementation is deeply understood.