From pretty fluffy things in the sky to one of the hottest topics for small and global businesses alike, clouds are reducing the need for on-premise hosting more than ever.
It's safe to assume that the word (as a service) you repeatedly hear ultimately means cloud computing in the cloud deployment world.
In short, if you're considering eCommerce business, these are your top acronyms to focus on, as they're the three main types of cloud computing:
A taxi is a car as a service. You pay only when you take a taxi. You don’t need to buy a car, pay for fuel, and garage or pump up tires. You don’t even have to drive! Just seat and you'll be on-site within the hour.
IT services can be provided in the same way. A customer doesn’t bear capital expenditures and pays only when he uses a service. For example, a writer opens a text editor in the browser rather than installs it on his computer. A company doesn’t build a data center; it simply rents computing services from a cloud provider. A program or infrastructure is provided as a service.
This model is usually called XaaS or Anything-as-a-service. It includes all the services in a cloud that customers can order over the Internet. "X" can be changed: IaaS refers to infrastructure as a service, PaaS — a platform for development, SaaS — a software as a service.
IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS are the main models of providing cloud services. Gartner, the world's leading research and advisory company, identifies them as follows:
IaaS — a client gets only infrastructure,
PaaS — a client gets infrastructure and software for application development,
SaaS — a client gets a ready-to-use application in the cloud.
SaaS: Software as a service
Everyone knows about software programs. We use them to print texts, send emails, create illustrations. They also include applications for corporate needs: CRM, ERP, and other systems.
In the past, users had to buy and install the programs on their local PC. Today, you can simply open it in your favorite browser. This is SaaS.
Example for end-users: Office 365 from Microsoft, Google service.
As opposed to on-premise applications, Saas doesn’t require you to buy a full version and spend much money at once; you don’t need to install the application on your device; you can utilize it from different devices.
New versions of ISPmanager and VM manager will be provided as SaaS solutions.
Advantages of SaaS:
The applications are updated automatically.
Subscription according to consumption.
Mobility of use.
Data is synchronized between your devices plus it is accessible anywhere and anytime.
Access to on-demand features.
Examples of SaaS:
Google Apps
Cisco WebEx
Citrix GoToMeeting
Dropbox
PaaS: Platform as a service
Building your own application requires different third-party software. You need a platform, tools, databases, machine learning libraries, and much more. Moreover, you have to host ready applications somewhere. It’s too expensive and time-consuming.
Alternatively, you can utilize an integrated development environment and store your applications on the application hosting that provides different services and tools. It is the provider who takes care of upgrades and other routine performance to keep the system working correctly. Such services are called PaaS.
Example. Cloud development environment Codenvy; Google App Engine, Microsoft Azure or AWS applications; Docker; serverless applications AWS, Oracle databases, etc.
The main benefit of PaaS is that it allows starting applications quickly even for small groups. Moreover, with a cloud service, developers can collect statistics from their apps, analyze information, and make the best decisions for their business.
VM manager helps create virtual machines to test software programs and perform other tasks.
Advantages of PaaS:
Save time and flexibility for development projects.
Maintain perfect control of its deployed applications.
Makes it possible to manage the development and hosting of the infrastructure.
Web services and databases are integrated.
Examples of PaaS:
AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Google Apps Engine
IBM Bluemix
OpenShift
SaaS vs PaaS
