Analysing the Impact of Scaling Out SaaS Software on Response Time

Abstract

When SaaS software suffers from the problem of response time degradation, scaling deployment resources that support the operation of software can improve the response time, but that also means an increase in the costs due to additional deployment resources. For the purpose of saving costs of deployment resources while improving response time, scaling out the SaaS software is an alternative approach. However, how scaling out software affects response time in the case of saving deployment resources is an important issue for effectively improving response time. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a method analysing the impact of scaling out software on response time. Specifically, we define the scaling-out operation of SaaS software and then leverage queueing theory to analyse the impact of the scaling-out operation on response time. According to the conclusions of impact analysis, we further derive an algorithm for improving response time based on scaling out software without using additional deployment resources. Finally, the effectiveness of the analysis’s conclusions and the proposed algorithm is validated by a practical case, which indicates that the conclusions of impact analysis obtained from this paper can play a guiding role in scaling out software and improving response time effectively while saving deployment resources.