Of the three main cloud computing service models—Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS)—the latter might be the most creative. To understand PaaS, imagine IaaS as the land on which you build a home and SaaS as your fully furnished bungalow. Next imagine a huge truck pulling up to provide all of the tools and equipment needed to build, maintain, and renovate that structure. That truck is akin to PaaS for today’s software developer.
Put simply, PaaS is a cloud-based environment for developers that runs off of an IaaS to host SaaS applications. It gives developers simplified web-based access to a whole slew of the latest tools for development along with middleware, operating systems, database management, and the infrastructure on which to deploy and host the new solution. Gain powerful, turnkey access to everything one might need to build a cloud application, manage its database, configure and provision its platform, test, debug—even host it. And as changes are made, they go live immediately.
So organizations eliminate the capital expense associated with application development and convert IT into a manageable operational expense that’s financed month to month and distributed over time. Development teams have the ability to work concurrently on a project within one streamlined environment that’s accessible from any location worldwide. And as storage needs evolve, so does the PaaS environment—expanding and contracting as needed. PaaS provides a complete solution that layers right on top of IaaS while leaving the bulk of responsibility with the service provider.
A solution provider like American Digital can manage all system administration, such as server set-up and tool configuration, along with datacenter management within the PaaS environment. They can also provide the security in knowing you’re covered 24/7 under their SLA. In return, developers stay focused on coding, testing, and deploying the applications and services their customers need most.