Preface

I have been working on .NET applications virtually from the very beginning of .NET. I think that I have worked with every possible .NET tool over the years, frontend and backend, good and bad! This has memorably included delivering training tools for processing facilities, building remote monitoring tools, and developing optimization solutions – all with .NET!

In this book, I have tied together my experience from the many projects that I have worked on over the last 20 years to put together what I hope is an interesting and informative look at how to build modern software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications with .NET.

This book is designed to detail and demystify the world of building SaaS applications with .NET and the Microsoft tech stack and aims to deliver the technical knowledge required to build, test, deploy, and maintain a modern SaaS application. We start off by introducing the technology that we will use and showcase it with a demo application. As we move through the book, we add additional tools and techniques, building up to the point that we have described and demonstrated all of the major topics required to build a SaaS application.

In reading this book, you’ll learn the tools, techniques, and best practices required to develop modern SaaS applications that will impress your users and deliver value for your enterprise. We cover the full stack, from the database to the user interface (UI), and then onward to deploying and maintaining the application in production.

I have tried to make this book accessible to everyone. To this end, I have exclusively used free and open source tools, and I have tried to always introduce new topics by linking them to core principles with as little assumed knowledge as possible. Where possible, I have illustrated the theory with practical examples.

By the end of this book, you will have a comprehensive understanding of the theory required and will have explored much of it through practical examples. You should be well on your way to delivering your first real-world SaaS application!

It is my hope that you will find this book not only educational and informative but also enjoyable. I also very much hope that the learning that you take away from this book will help you in your career and in all of your future endeavors!