What is PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service)?

 

PaaS is a cloud computing model that gives customers a complete cloud platform—hardware, software, and infrastructure—for developing, running, and managing applications. It's often more cost-effective and flexible than building and maintaining a platform on-premises.

PaaS providers offer a platform for customers to host everything related to their website or application including servers, networks, storage, operating system software, databases, and development tools. Customers can choose to pay a fixed monthly fee for access to a specified amount of resources, or they can go with the 'pay-as-you-go' model, which only charges for the resources used. PaaS customers can take advantage of the rapid deployment, amortization of infrastructure costs, economies of scale, and increased efficiency.

There are many different PaaS offerings available from leading cloud service providers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. Some popular PaaS solutions are also available as open-source projects, such as Apache Stratos and Cloud Foundry, or from software vendors like Red Hat OpenShift and Salesforce Heroku.

Benefits of PaaS

The benefits of PaaS that are most often cited in comparison to an on-premises platform include:

PaaS provides a quicker path to market as you don't need to buy or install any hardware or software. This means that your development team can get started immediately without having to wait. All you need to do is connect to the cloud service provider's PaaS and you can begin developing your application.

Easy, cost-effective scalability is one of the best features of PaaS. With an on-premises platform, scaling is always expensive and often times inadequate. You have to purchase additional computing, storage, and networking capacity in anticipation of traffic spikes, and much of that capacity usually sits idle during low-traffic periods. With PaaS, you can purchase additional capacity as you need it and it can be used immediately, to accommodate any unanticipated surges.

Lowering costs is always a top priority for companies, and PaaS can assist with that in several ways. By enabling an organization to avoid the expense of capital equipment needed to build and scale an application platform, PaaS can help reduce costs overall. In addition, PaaS can also lower or eliminate software licensing costs. Furthermore, by handling things like patches, updates, and other administrative tasks, PaaS can also reduce your company's overall application management costs.

By using a PaaS platform, you can have access to a wider range of resources than you would if you tried to maintain them yourself. Typically, PaaS platforms offer access to a variety of choices for things like operating systems, middleware, databases, and development tools. This can be more affordable than having to maintain all of these resources yourself.

PaaS gives you the chance to explore and play around with new operating systems, languages, and other tools without having to put too much money down for them or the infrastructure required to run them. This makes it a low-risk way of experimenting so you can figure out what works best for you and your company without having to commit to anything long-term.

PaaS services offer a cloud-based environment for software development that is flexible and accessible for development and operations teams. By using PaaS, all tools needed for software development are available online and can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. This allows development teams to work more efficiently and with greater flexibility.

How PaaS works

PaaS solutions have three primary components: cloud infrastructure, software for managing applications, and a graphical user interface. The cloud infrastructure hosts virtual machines, operating system software, storage, networking, and firewalls. The software for managing applications helps with building, deploying, and maintaining them. The graphical user interface is where development or DevOps teams can do all their work throughout the application's lifecycle.

PaaS is perfect for developers who want to be able to access their projects from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. All of the standard development tools are available through PaaS's easy-to-use online interface. Because applications are designed and developed right in the PaaS using middleware, workflows are streamlined and multiple development and operations teams can work on the same project at the same time.

PaaS providers manage the servers, runtime, and virtualization for you, while your company maintains control of applications and data.

PaaS examples

There are many leading PaaS providers:

• AWS Elastic Beanstalk

• Cloud Foundry

• Google App Engine

• Microsoft Azure App Service

• Red Hat OpenShift

• Salesforce Heroku

• Purpose-built PaaS types
  
  
  

Many vendors offer PaaS solutions that are specialized for building certain types of applications or for applications that need to interact with specific hardware, software, or devices.

AIPaaS PaaS for Artificial Intelligence is a way for development teams to create AI applications without having to go through the expense of buying, managing, and maintaining the required computing power, storage and networking capacity. AiPaaS comes with pre-trained machine learning and deep learning models which developers can use as is or customize, as well as ready-made APIs for integrating specific AI capabilities into new or existing applications. This allows for a more streamlined and cost-effective development process.

iPaaS (integration platform as a service) is a cloud-based solution that helps organizations connect data, processes, and services across public and private clouds, as well as on-premises environments. With iPaaS, organizations don't have to worry about purchasing, installing, and managing backend integration hardware, middleware, and software.

CPaaS (communications platform as a service) makes it easy for developers to add voice, video, and messaging capabilities to their applications. This includes inbound and outbound calls, teleconferencing, and text or social media messaging. You don't need to invest in specialized communications hardware or software, making CPaaS a cost-effective option.

mPaaS, or mobile platform as a service, is a PaaS that makes application development much simpler for mobile devices. mPaaS provides low-code methods (simple drag-and-drop methods for those who are less experienced in coding) to access device-specific features, which include the phone's camera, motion sensor, microphone, and GPS.

Final Thought

PaaS providers offer a robust platform for customers to host everything related to their website or application, including servers, networks, storage, operating system software, databases, and development tools. PaaS is an ideal solution for businesses that want to focus on their core product or service, without the hassle of managing complex infrastructure.