PaaS – what is it ?

By
Tim Bullock
– May 3, 2010Posted in: CIO, cloud computing, outsource, technical

PaaS is an acronym for Platform as a Service.

PaaS is an outsourced service offering in which a service provider hosts all the infrastructure services that you are likely to need, such as database management, application serving, development environment, workflow and security. Using these services, you can either develop your own business system or deploy a ready-built one.

Typically, the infrastructure will be delivered using virtual infrastructure which allows the service provider to better utilise hardware and hence offer the service at a lower cost than the traditional ‘host your own servers’ method.

PaaS services are usually accessed by the Internet or in some cases, by a private network.

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What is the relationship between Cloud Computing and PaaS ?

Cloud Computing is a generic term that describes shared computing resources that can be dynamically scaled according to business requirements, faster than traditional computing environments.

PaaS is one delivery model of Cloud Computing. Refer to these articles for information about other delivery models: IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), DaaS (Desktop as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service).

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What are the benefits of using PaaS ?

  • The up-front cost of introducing infrastructure is reduced, as the usual capital investment in hardware and software is replaced by a monthly ‘usage’ charge. The economic benefit of this should be verified to account for the number of users, data volumes.
  • The cost of using the system (should be) less than the cost of hosting it yourself, when taking into account all the infrastructure costs such as hardware, backups, contingency provision and ongoing upgrades and maintenance.
  • Your company’s need for IT skills will reduce if your PaaS supplier provides a fully managed solution. The skill-set required will be less about technology and more focused on configuration of the PaaS service to fit the business needs and vendor management.

Image of Cloud Computing, A Practical Approach

Service delivery options

SaaS is offered through a number of different delivery options, such as Public cloud service, Private cloud, Hybrid cloud and managed cloud.

Refer to this article about Cloud Computing for further information.

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What should I be aware of before using PaaS ?

  • Perform due-diligence on the supplier to ensure they are financially stable and have security and operational policies and procedures in place that are at least as comprehensive as those of your company.
  • Ensure you know where your data is. Many companies have a legal and regulatory obligation to know exactly where their data is.
  • Ensure you know who has access to your data at the service provider. You don’t want a disgruntled employee of the service provider taking a copy of your client database.
  • Ensure the data is encrypted on the service provider’s servers and on their backups.
  • Ensure the backed-up data is available for you to recover from as a result of an issue caused by your company. For example, many Cloud service providers perform regular backups, but will only restore if they suffer a problem. This won’t help you if you accidentally delete some of your data.
  • Ensure you understand the legal and regulatory requirements that you must comply with. For example the retention of month-end backups.
  • Understand how upgrades to the software are applied and whether you have the opportunity to test your business systems on the new version before it is implemented for live use.
  • Understand how the system and its security will be integrated into your company’s existing infrastructure.
  • Delivery of the service is totally dependent on the performance and stability of the network. Make sure that both the company premises and the hosting provider have sufficient capacity and diverse routing to cope in the event of a failure.

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What is the financial impact of using PAAS ?

Financially, the significant difference of Cloud Computing is that it is typically charged on a pay-as-you-use basis. The cost of is therefore an operating expense instead of a capital investment. This may suit many companies, as they can very quickly get access to a business system for no capital outlay and the cost is charged monthly.. However, tight control needs to be kept on the use of the services, as it is easy to expand and hence increase ongoing charges.

Charges are typically based on the number of virtualised servers, the amount of network traffic and the data storage space used.

Watch-out for the network traffic charge. Often this is capped at an amount per month. If your Cloud Computing has public access, the network usage could be out of your control and you could end-up paying an excess network usage cost.

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Examples of PAAS

Examples of PaaS are Google’s App Engine and Amazon’s Web Services Elastic Compute Cloud.

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Do I still need an IT capability in-house ?

It depends on whether all of your company’s infrastructure will run on the Cloud platform. If the answer to that is no, then you will still need an IT capability.

If your PaaS supplier provides a fully managed solution. The skill-set required will be less about technology and more focused on configuration of the PaaS service to fit the business needs and vendor management.

Image of Cloud Computing Explained: Implementation Handbook for Enterprises

Also read ….

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© Copyright Tim Bullock 2010


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