Platform as a Service (PaaS)

PaaS is the ab­bre­vi­a­tion for platform as a service. This term refers to a cloud service through which the provider supplies a de­vel­op­ment en­vi­ron­ment as well as tools for de­vel­op­ing new ap­pli­ca­tions. PaaS is therefore par­tic­u­lar­ly useful for de­vel­op­ers and software companies who want to create and publish new programs or apps quickly and easily, without having to take care of the required in­fra­struc­ture them­selves.

In cloud computing, PaaS rep­re­sents a link between "software as a service" (SaaS) and "in­fra­struc­ture as a service" (IaaS). While IaaS only provides the in­fra­struc­ture that companies need for their work, PaaS goes one step further and offers a package of useful tools so you can start de­vel­op­ing apps. This means, you can design, test, revise, and deploy the product to your users: all this is possible with platform as a service.

Well-known platform as a service solutions include Sales­force's Google App Engine (GAE), Microsoft Azure, and force.com.

PaaS’s offerings consist of basic in­fra­struc­ture such as servers, operating systems, storage space, and mid­dle­ware, i.e. programs that in­ter­con­nect multiple ap­pli­ca­tions. In addition, there are resources such as de­vel­op­ment tools, pro­gram­ming languages, database man­age­ment systems, and container tech­niques. The various solutions contained on the platform are either the provider’s pro­pri­etary de­vel­op­ments or come from third parties. Their purpose is to enable customers to develop new web ap­pli­ca­tions quickly and con­ve­nient­ly.

If you use PaaS, you no longer have to worry about buying and managing the in­fra­struc­ture or pur­chas­ing the solutions required for de­vel­op­ment, but can focus com­plete­ly on pro­gram­ming your ap­pli­ca­tion and on your customers. The resulting programs can then be made available as software as a service via the cloud. These can be, for example, com­mer­cial apps or internal software that are only intended for use within the company itself.

With platform as a service, you basically develop your product as you would in a self-built de­vel­op­ment en­vi­ron­ment. Once the code is created, you transfer it to the platform, where it is deployed and executed in a container that meets the resource re­quire­ments. Here, you can see changes instantly. Many PaaS services are able to run multiple versions of a program at the same time e.g. you can create live test en­vi­ron­ments or execute roll backs from previous versions.

Web hosting services are a simple example of how platform as a service works. As a customer, you create the code and enter it into the web hosting service. This executes the code and displays the web page you created. You don't have to worry about storage space, main­te­nance, or database setup. However, PaaS offerings can also be much more complex and include many other features.

If you use platform as a service, only certain pro­gram­ming languages are available. So you need to choose a provider that supports the languages you use. Pay close attention to the re­quire­ments of your own project and which pro­gram­ming languages are used by the in­di­vid­ual PaaS solutions.

Also consider what services you will probably need in the future if the ap­pli­ca­tions you develop are suc­cess­ful and generate more traffic. Your service must remain stable even in the event of a sudden influx of users – poor per­for­mance has a negative impact on your company because it leads to long loading times. And this in turn leads to customer dis­sat­is­fac­tion.

The services you book can usually be upscaled, but the price increases as well. You should consider these costs before choosing a provider.

In addition to app de­vel­op­ment, there are other ap­pli­ca­tion areas in which PaaS is fre­quent­ly used:

• For example, to develop or extend new pro­gram­ming in­ter­faces (APIs)
• It can also be used to analyze extensive data to better predict demand for specific products, for example
• Paas can also be used to access or set up a business process man­age­ment platform that stores business rules or service level agree­ments
• The platform can also be used to manage critical business data and provide an overview of data, even if it is stored re­dun­dant­ly on different systems
• In addition, platform as a service can act as a com­mu­ni­ca­tion platform to deliver voice, video, or messaging content
• As Database PaaS, the service is also used for automated databases
• The Internet of Things, in par­tic­u­lar, is con­sid­ered to be a future growth area. This plays an important role for cloud services, as PaaS en­vi­ron­ments are also suitable for de­vel­op­ing new ap­pli­ca­tions that can be used for the Internet of Things.

In view of the wide range of platform as a service solutions on offer, it is hardly possible to assign clear cat­e­gories to these. This is because the in­di­vid­ual models sometimes differ greatly and are tailored to different needs. Nev­er­the­less, there are certain char­ac­ter­is­tics that can be used to identify different types.

For example, a dis­tinc­tion is made between ap­pli­ca­tion PaaS (aPaaS) and in­te­gra­tion and gov­er­nance PaaS (iPaaS). The first model describes the de­ploy­ment of apps that have a graphical interface for operation. For example, this could be a program for internal use in the company that employees can access and use via the cloud.

iPaaS, on the other hand, aims to integrate cloud services, with the platform ensuring that mid­dle­ware is no longer required to provide ap­pli­ca­tions. An example of this is the Anypoint Platform developed by MuleSoft.

The pure ap­pli­ca­tion pro­vi­sion­ing, on the other hand, allows neither the de­vel­op­ment nor the testing of apps, but only their operation.

In addition, there are the open PaaS offers. This refers to ap­pli­ca­tions such as Google App Engine, which make it possible to work in an open source en­vi­ron­ment and for which the pro­gram­ming languages, databases, servers, or operating systems are not pre­de­fined.

As mentioned above, there are also platforms that are used for com­mu­ni­ca­tion purposes. This type is called com­mu­ni­ca­tions platform as a service (cPaaS).

Using PaaS offers de­vel­op­ers many ad­van­tages. The main advantage is that de­vel­op­ment is much faster and easier, since you don’t have to purchase and manage your own in­fra­struc­ture. Products can be brought to market faster. Per­for­mance is also scalable: like with other cloud services, you can flexibly expand or reduce booked capacity as needed. In addition, you save money because you do not have to pay for ac­qui­si­tion costs and you do not have to carry out main­te­nance and take care of updates yourself or purchase new software licenses.

The fact that the provider takes care of con­fig­ur­ing the in­fra­struc­ture is both an advantage and a dis­ad­van­tage of PaaS. As a result, you have no control over the in­fra­struc­ture and cannot implement features yourself. In addition, only the pro­gram­ming languages and tools made available by the provider can be used.

Another factor that should be con­sid­ered when deciding for or against platform as a service is the fact that your project is more or less tied to the chosen de­vel­op­ment en­vi­ron­ment. A small project can be migrated, but for larger ap­pli­ca­tions, when you move to a different platform, the code may not always be fully adopted and may need to be at least partially rewritten.

It is also par­tic­u­lar­ly annoying if the chosen provider decides to dis­con­tin­ue its service or goes bankrupt. In order to minimize this risk, you should choose an es­tab­lished market par­tic­i­pant that has already es­tab­lished itself on the market.