What is PaaS?

PaaS, or Platform-as-a-Service, is a cloud computing model that provides customers with a complete platform. It allows them to develop, run and manage applications without the cost, complexity and rigidity of managing an on-premises platform.

The cloud ecosystem is organized around three models. The best known is SaaS (Software as a service) allowing the use of online software without installing it on a workstation.

The second is IaaS (Infrastructure as a service) which allows a company to rely on an external infrastructure. The supplier supports the installation of file servers, networks and data storage.

The third cloud model is PaaS (Platform as a service). It’s the same thing as IaaS except that it also integrates the operating system, the database, the web server…

This complete offer is attracting more and more companies. The simplicity that PaaS brings also allows start-ups to quickly launch their web services and mobile applications without worrying too much about their technical infrastructure.

There are many use cases:

• API development and management: PaaS can be used to develop, run, manage, and secure application programming interfaces (APIs) and microservices.
• Internet of Things (IoT): PaaS can support the wide range of application environments, programming languages, and tools used for deployments;
• Business analysis: PaaS tools allow you to analyze your data in order to find information that helps you make better decisions.

These few use cases show the extent of the possibilities of PaaS. It is therefore not surprising that this model is growing, as underlined by a study from Gartner. It is expected to grow from $20 billion in revenue in 2019 to $34 billion in 2022.

PaaS And Telecommuting

In many cases, PaaS is more cost effective than IaaS. Overhead costs are reduced because PaaS customers do not need to manage and provision virtual machines.

Regarding pricing, however, companies must be vigilant. Some providers establish their pay-as-you-go billing (only the IT resources used by the application being billed). Others charge a fixed amount per month.

Apart from this downside, PaaS has certain advantages. It allows development teams to build, test, deploy, maintain, update, and scale applications much faster and more cost-effectively than managing their own platform.

Since PaaS is accessible online, it is possible to create a complete application in a web browser. Since the development environment is not hosted locally, developers can work on the application from anywhere in the world.

Indirectly, PaaS allows companies to continue to develop their applications even during a degraded mode as was the case during confinement.

Also Read: 5 steps To Seamless Cloud Migration