Scale your relational database for SaaS, Part 1: Common scaling patterns

This article discusses various approaches for scaling relational databases for Software as a Service (SaaS) applications as they grow. It focuses on strategies to maintain performance and response times as the number of tenants increases.

Specifically, the article covers:

• An overview of SaaS partitioning models (silo, bridge, and pool)
• Scaling physical resources by scaling vertically, scaling horizontally with read replicas, and sharding (covered in Part 2)
• Optimizing database operations through techniques like micro-batching, table partitioning, aggregating data, and scaling database connectivity
• Bringing in purpose-built databases for specific use cases
• The importance of verifying and monitoring the effectiveness of the chosen scaling approach