Ep111: The Architecture of Growth: Sonar's Evolution to Multi-Region SaaS

Andrea Malagodi, CTO of Sonar, discusses how the company successfully transitioned from on-premise to SaaS, leveraging AWS partnership and maintaining focus on developer-centric code quality and security solutions.

Topics Include:

• Andrea Malagodi is CTO of Sonar, guest on podcast
• Sonar founded 16+ years ago by three software engineers
• Founders wanted to help developers understand code quality issues
• Focus on giving developers precise, actionable insights for improvement
• Products include SonarQube Server, Cloud, and IDE versions
• Recent acquisitions: ACR, Tidelift, and Structure 101 companies
• SaaS journey began seven years ago with SonarQube Cloud
• Initially targeted individual developers, then expanded to enterprises
• Now multi-region with comprehensive enterprise features available
• Seven million developers rely on Sonar's solutions globally
• 400,000 organizations and 28,000 enterprise customers use Sonar
• Started SaaS to test market demand, not assumptions
• Engaged customers early to understand migration requirements needed
• Recommends alpha versions with design customers for feedback
• Free tier for open-source code enables quick trial
• Enterprise certifications (ISO 27001, SOC 2) build trust
• AWS partnership includes enterprise support and technical resources
• Used CDK for infrastructure-as-code, experienced early adoption challenges
• Multi-region strategy should be considered from the beginning
• AWS Learning partnership certified all engineers in cloud
• Cloud enables faster development cycles than traditional infrastructure
• Recommends avoiding architectural one-way doors during transition
• Consider data residency requirements for global customer base
• AI-generated code creates productivity gains but needs validation
• Sonar provides deterministic rules for AI-generated code review
• Working on MCP protocol and AI code quality solutions
• Security approach is "start left" not "shift left"
• Advanced Security offering includes dependency scanning and vulnerabilities
• Available on sonarsource.com and AWS Marketplace
• Free tier offers 50,000 lines of code analysis

Participants:

• Andrea Malagodi – Chief Technical Officer, Sonar

Further Links:

• Website: www.sonarsource.com
• Sonar in the AWS Marketplace

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/