There are many reasons why proxies and proxy servers are a critical component of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) businesses. In this article, we’ll be discussing what type of proxies should be used and the biggest reasons why they’re essential for companies using cloud infrastructure.
by Carl Gamutan
Publishing Date: August 19, 2022
There are many reasons why proxies and proxy servers are a critical component of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) businesses. In this article, we’ll be discussing what type of proxies should be used and the biggest reasons why they’re essential for companies using cloud infrastructure.
The types of proxies you should use for your web server or application server are reverse proxies. Reverse proxies are the opposite of forward proxies. If you don’t know, forward proxies are the most common type of proxy and are what’s generally referred to when talking about proxy servers. Forward proxies protect clients from web servers and reverse proxies shield servers from users. If you want to learn more about the two, check out this article detailing the differences between the two.
A proxy server would act as another layer of security for your server. All incoming and outgoing traffic will have to go through the proxy server, so it can detect suspicious activity and alert the system administrators. Potential attackers will not be able to see your system’s network structure, so they can’t steal any important information and modify any data.
In the unlikely event that a cyber attack can breach through the proxy server and go to your application server, the proxy server would have already alerted your system administrators and given them enough time to troubleshoot and solve the problem. A proxy server enables great flexibility in changing rules without touching any data on the backend servers.
Proxy servers can help manage user authentication and reduce invalid login attempts that the application server has to handle. The application server doesn’t even have to check each separate login.
Proxy servers will check if a user is permitted to do a specific action or request. For example, if an unauthenticated user does an action that can only be done by an authenticated user, the proxy server sends a logging-in request to the application server, which would then pop up to that user.
Proxy servers can assign specific requests to the appropriate application server that will accommodate that request. A proxy server can see the request’s URL, so it knows which application server the request should go to. Proxy servers allow you to easily change rules, remove needless parameters, and add useful parameters.
A proxy server can also act as a load balancer for your application server. It would distribute functions to multiple servers, so all the load for that specific function will be shared among those servers. Even if one server goes down, there are still multiple other servers ready to take its place.
Through a proxy server, your application server would see a good increase in performance without costing too much money on upgrading hardware components. The proxy server would act as an assistant to the application server, so the application server doesn’t have to handle any unnecessary tasks, and it can focus on doing its job.
There are many more reasons why SaaS businesses should invest in a proxy server. The few that we discussed are just some of the many benefits you could obtain when using a proxy server, but hopefully, this article has convinced you to get a proxy server for your business.
