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 come with building and maintaining that platform on-prem.
Why do companies choose PaaS?
PaaS brings together middleware, operating systems, development and deployment in an abstracted environment, separate from an organisation’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 organisation to develop and deploy customised apps in a highly streamlined manner.
What are the advantages of PaaS?
PaaS allows organisations 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 with access to the latest technology without having to make a large upfront 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 organisation, 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 life cycle management.
PaaS solutions usually scale automatically to meet demand and accelerate processes through the automation and standardisation 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 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 for 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 in 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 sophisticated yet easy to use to keep customers on board. Moreover, the applications need to be modular, easily customised, 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, providing organisations with 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 that 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 personalise 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 analyse, evaluate and design cloud computing solutions so that you can quickly deploy the new applications that will 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 centre. Our PaaS experts can help you with both the strategy and design of your digital transformation. We provide an on-prem 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 optimise and integrate a broader IT supply chain using a detailed approach to rightsizing your future data centre, whether you provision yourself or source from elsewhere.
Modernisation
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 towards 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.