Platform as a Service (PaaS)
What is Platform as a Service (PaaS)?
PaaS, or Platform-as-a-Service, is a cloud computing model that provides a complete cloud platform—hardware, software, and infrastructure—for developing, running, and managing applications without the cost, complexity, and inflexibility that often comes with building and maintaining that platform on-premises.
Why do companies choose PaaS?
PaaS brings together middleware, operating systems, development, and deployment in an abstracted environment, separate from an organization’s infrastructure. This enables companies to more easily migrate existing in-house applications to the cloud, making it faster and simpler to scale resources as their user base grows. It also makes it possible for an organization to develop and deploy customized apps in a highly streamlined manner.
What are the advantages of PaaS?
PaaS allows organizations to quickly and confidently develop, deploy, and iterate business applications and integrations without having to purchase and maintain the supporting infrastructure. For smaller businesses, it provides them access to the latest technology without having to make a large up-front investment in resources. Larger enterprises can quickly add new users and resources as business needs evolve while bypassing lengthy procurement processes. And for any size organization, PaaS allows them to focus on their core business activities without having to worry about maintaining and updating basic technology infrastructure.
Using PaaS, a business can take advantage of:
· Rapid scalability
· Lower costs
· Greater flexibility
· Increased workforce capabilities
· Access to business analytics
· Shorter development times
· Team collaboration support
· Streamlined application lifecycle management
PaaS solutions usually scale automatically to meet demand and speed processes through the automation and standardization of development and deployment tasks. Multiple people can use the same development application concurrently, which allows developers to work on a project and stakeholders to interact with the development team. PaaS systems also often have security and data protection built in. Moreover, when it comes to deploying applications from multiple systems and across both the web and the Internet of Things, PaaS offers integration and aggregation components that simplify these activities.
What are the differences between PaaS, IaaS, and SaaS?
All three of the services, PaaS, IaaS, and SaaS, comprise the service layer, or what’s known as the software stack in cloud computing. This stack is a set of programs that provide the software infrastructure of a computer or server. These cloud services work together—not in isolation—to support a business, manage configurations, and provision the right resources on demand.
IaaS
Starting with the base layer of cloud services, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offers fundamental computer operations including operating systems, networks, virtual machines, and storage. Users can “rent” the space for these to free up their in-house hardware for more proprietary or resource-intensive computing.
PaaS
Platform as a Service (PaaS) occupies the middle layer and provides development and deployment services. A PaaS platform performs the testing, deployment, management, and maintenance of application development. It also allows multiple users to run copies simultaneously and separately from each other.
SaaS
Software as a Service (SaaS) holds the top spot of the software stack, comprising the actual applications offered to end users. The typical services offered share several characteristics. Among these, the applications usually include general business services, such as accounting or CRM. The navigation of these applications must also be both sophisticated yet easy to use to keep customers on board. Moreover, the applications need to be modular, easily customized, constantly updated, and securely separated from other users’ data.
What do PaaS providers offer?
The PaaS provider hosts and maintains the system and often builds a solution tailored to the unique needs of the customer. Meanwhile, the customer maintains control of their applications. PaaS can be delivered over public, private, or hybrid cloud environments, allowing organizations the flexibility to develop and host their apps and data in accordance with their existing security, governance, and performance requirements.
Many platforms will include templates, libraries, software development kits, or build packs that provide some level of guidance on how to build certain types of applications and simplify the process of deploying code. Platforms also typically offer an array of design, testing, collaboration, and development tools as well as incorporating popular open source technologies.
Some common examples of PaaS providers include:
· AWS Elastic Beanstalk
· Microsoft Azure
· Google App Engine
· Salesforce aPaaS
· SAP Cloud Platform
· Cloud Foundry
· RedHat OpenShift
PaaS is even entering the artificial intelligence space, where providers are starting to offer AI Platform as a Service (AIPaaS). Now companies can begin using pre-trained machine learning models, which they can then personalize to integrate specific AI capabilities into an application with APIs.
How can HPE help with switching to PaaS?
Businesses across industries can use PaaS to plan for growth. PaaS can relieve the burden of monitoring, maintaining, and updating a development platform so you can focus on your core business. HPE helps you analyze, evaluate, and design cloud computing solutions so you can quickly deploy the new applications that drive your business. We offer the following solutions to help you get to the next level in your industry.
Transition services
For some enterprises, moving to a cloud platform efficiently is an uphill climb. HPE offers guidance on how to transform and consolidate your data center. Our PaaS experts can help you with both the strategy and design of your digital transformation. We provide on-premises service to help you with every step, from IT infrastructure planning to provider integration.
Determining platform services for delivery
HPE can also help you determine which platform services will best serve your goals. We help you optimize and integrate a broader IT supply chain using a detailed approach to right-sizing your future data center, whether you provision yourself or source from elsewhere.
Modernization
HPE offers exclusive roadmaps and workshops to help you adopt and implement modern software-defined and private-cloud-based architectures using converged, hyper-converged, and composable infrastructure platforms.
With years of experience, our experts will guide you towards a software-defined infrastructure and help shift your unique IT supply chain toward future subscription services. Using our platform services, you can expect flawless and on-time implementation, on-budget execution, and creative configurations that get the most out of your platform investment.