In our last article, we discussed The history of The Cloud and provided a basic definition for The Cloud. This article will go into deeper detail, providing definitions and examples of Cloud subsets and types of services The Cloud provides.

What’s in The Cloud?
Cloud Services are any information technology services executed outside of your network infrastructure. These services accumulatively are referred to as The Cloud. The Cloud is comprised of three predominant subsets: Platform as a Service, Software as a Service, and Everything as a Service.

From Dev Revival
View full size image

Platform as a Service (PaaS):
PaaS is an old concept with a new name. Hosting has been around since the dawn of the internet. Platform as a Service is similar to standard, platform hosting offerings, with a few key improvements. In a traditional hosting service, you either co-locate equipment or rent storage space on someone else’s equipment. PaaS is similar to shared storage. However, thanks to the wonders of virtualization, you have more options and greater degree of control regarding the equipment, OS, database, and features that you are utilizing. This greater control offers greater granularity in regards to hosting expenses.

Several vendors provide full PaaS offerings including: Microsoft’s Azure platform, Google’s App Engine, and Amazon’s EC2. A simple Google search for Platform as a Service vendors yields more than 7MM links to smaller players in the PaaS market.

Included in PaaS offerings are several more targeted services: DaaS, DBaaS, and IaaS. Each of these are typically included in the major vendors’ PaaS offering, but they can also be acquired individually from the smaller more focused vendors.

Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS is a utility billing approach to equipment and network leasing. The client identifies the resources required. (I.E. bandwidth, server nodes, process, memory, storage space, etc…) The vendor then bills the client for either anticipated or real usage of the equipment. Many of these vendors offer rapid scaling and deployment, as well as, reduced capital expenditures.

Database as a Service or DBaaS is a specialized niche within the PaaS category. As the name suggests, DBaaS allows the client to lease database space, only paying for the space consumed by the database. Often times, vendors will also provide vital features such as DBA and performance monitoring. Additionally fail over and redundancy options are almost always available.

Data as a Service or DaaS is a focus on the data rather than the hosting platform. This concept is similar to that of a Master Data Model or Customer Data Integration, in which all data is housed in a central location. That data is then cleansed in one location and referenced or distributed to a variety of applications.

Software as a Service or SaaS:
Software as a Service, much like PaaS, is not a new technology, but a change in the delivery, packaging, and pricing of applications that began in the late 90's. SaaS applications are typically rented and not purchased. The client usually pays for software in a monthly or utility billing model based on usage or number of seats. SaaS offerings typically consist of Web-based platforms or Web Services consumed over the internet. However, the rising popular of The Cloud has lead to a rise in desktop applications and/or smart clients that are distributed using a SaaS model.

The SaaS model was originally popular with SMBs, who did not have the capital to purchase enterprise applications and were comfortable with the variable costs and instability of this fledgling model. These SMBs propelled early vendors such as SalesForce.com and Google’s Gmail. However, over the last decade, SaaS and SaaS vendors have

You do not have flash or javascript support.

Average (1 vote)

Reply