The benefits of AWS are well-known: pay-as-you-go, agility, PaaS services, etc. But, AWS is a particularly good match for SaaS companies. Here are a handful of reasons software companies are successful on AWS:

• Agility – The bar for agility in SaaS applications tends to be even higher than for other applications. DevOps and Software development teams want to make frequent updates and get them out to customers quickly.
• Automation and Repeatability – Automate your AWS resource build-out so adding extra capacity or (if you’re single tenant) creating a new account/VPC for a customer is quick and easy.
• Maximize engineer productivity
• Ensure consistency across resources
• Reduce the chance of manual error
• Trial capability – It’s easier to give customers a 30-day trial when you can onboard companies more quickly and spin back down resources if they don’t convert.
• Access Controls – Never underestimate how much simpler it is to centralize access management in AWS IAM Policies versus on-premises. Granting granular levels of controls for different customer types, automating the maintenance of those controls over time, and monitoring access to different resource types is easier in AWS IAM. SaaS companies often need to grant different levels of access across tenants and tenant users, and any efficiency improvements in access controls have a big impact on SaaS companies.
• “Managed” and serverless services – Software companies want to focus on developing software, not maintaining IT resources. Tools like Amazon RDS and other PaaS-like services mean the SaaS company can offload some of the work of maintenance, monitoring, incident response, and patching to an AWS partner.
• Billing segregation – Since AWS resources can be tagged and (sometimes) metered, it may be simpler for some companies to track AWS usage by customer, depending on configuration.

From multi-regulatory compliance to multi-account architectures, SaaS applications require a unique set of AWS architectural best practices. The most mature SaaS providers are able to go after new customers in any industry — no matter their compliance, performance, or special requirements — and get them onboarded quickly, knowing that each environment meets a baseline set of security requirements. However, building a fully-automated AWS infrastructure is complex, and most SaaS companies want their team to focus on delivering better software — not configuring and managing infrastructure. That’s why companies turn to Logicworks. We have deep expertise working with SaaS companies to build, refresh, and manage their AWS environments.

If you want to learn more about Logicworks, contact us to speak to an AWS cloud expert.