By Shane Zilinskas, founder of ClearSummit. Experienced, hands-on engineer building engaging products with his Los Angeles-based firm for businesses everywhere.

In the past, businesses used to rely on enterprise software that handled as much of the business process as possible — a literal one-stop shop of administrative functions like finance, human resources, inventory management and the like. These products are referred to as enterprise resource planning or ERP products. 

Massive software products like these were monsters to build, launch and maintain. The entire system was installed locally, including the database. Most of these legacy ERPs are stable and reliable, and they do the job well — until it is time to scale.

Enterprise-as-a-service (EaaS) has overtaken traditional ERP software as the system of choice for running business operations. Many companies sign up with third-party EaaS platforms, while others opt to build their own home-grown versions. 

What is EaaS?

EaaS is a cloud computing service that provides business process management-related software products to its customers. It can cover either a single business function, such as vendor tracking, or a range of related functions. 

Because an EaaS product is hosted online, authorized users can access it anywhere and anytime. It’s easy for employees to work collaboratively, even when connecting from off site or working from home. 

Why build your own EaaS platform?

EaaS products are in high demand — especially if you can find the right business process to solve. Entire industries are shifting from fixed physical locations (like an office) to remote workplaces, and so it’s becoming less practical to maintain a physical server with on-premise software. 

Also, the degree of flexibility, ease of use and scalability that EaaS applications provide mean a high return on investment when compared to the legacy-based alternative. 

How can you make your EaaS platform scalable?

It doesn’t make sense to build an entire EaaS platform that can only accommodate a small number of users. Sure, your initial needs might be small, but what happens if your business grows, or you get an influx of new customers? Suddenly, your product isn’t so much “lean” as it is “limited.”

Your product should either be able to accommodate large numbers of users from the beginning or be built in such a way that you can easily expand its capacity. 

Prime your platform for scalability by following these tips:

1. Follow a standard architecture.

Picture this: You have a brilliant idea for a new EaaS product that will be on the cutting-edge of everything: the features provided, the technology used and the architecture employed. Everything goes relatively well, and your product launches.

Fast-forward five years — heck, maybe even three — and the hot architecture upon which you built your EaaS platform has now fallen out of favor. Few developers know or leverage the trendy technology used for your code, which makes it harder and costlier to scale the platform up.

If you want to build a future-proof platform, you should base it on a standard architecture and popular/common technology. You won’t win any innovation awards, but you’ll be making it easier to expand on and develop your product years into the future. 

2. Separate your layers.

Using a standard layered architecture will go a long way toward making sure your software can scale based on need. For example, if you need to update the software so that it can be used in new devices, you would only need to update the presentation layer. If you need to update business definitions and the class library, you would update the business layer.

A layer-based architecture protects your developers from having to update multiple areas of the platform to make a single change. 

3. Cache whenever possible.

Caching outside of your database reduces the workload of your database engine. The more caching opportunities you employ, the more available bandwidth you leave for the other important processes. 

There are different types of caches you can use, each with its own pros and cons. Local caches are the easiest and most commonly used method of speeding up performance and are ideal for web applications like an EaaS platform. A centralized remote cache is practical because all of your EaaS clients can connect to the same data storage facility and only have to load the information once. 

With proper caching, your EaaS will only have to scale horizontally and not vertically. You’ve set yourself up properly for future growth. 

4. Consider microservices.

A “microservices architecture” is an architectural method in which a platform is designed around a collection of specialized services instead of as a single large application. Every microservice is independently deployed and maintained and fulfills a single or small set of business goals. 

When you need to scale your platform, you can either swap out one microservice for another or update an individual microservice with relative ease. 

5. Take advantage of APIs.

Microservices and application programming interfaces (APIs) go hand in hand. Private APIs are what make your EaaS modular enough to be able to scale based on future need. Different API design styles, such as REST, SOAP and gRPC, give your team plenty of options on how to approach a microservices-based architecture. 

But APIs aren’t just for internal microservices. You can include public API endpoints that allow your EaaS product to interact with third-party applications. This allows users to extend the functionality of your platform and further integrate it within their tech stack. 

In Conclusion

Scalability is not an option when building an EaaS platform. It’s not only essential, but it’s the main reason EaaS is superior to traditional ERPs.

When you follow proper coding principles, use scalable design architecture and open yourself up to microservices and third-party applications, you’re building a product that can scale in both performance and in functionality. You’re building a product that, with a little effort, can grow to match whatever is required of it in the future.