Choosing the cloud is often a process of weeks or months, with not just IT admins but executives and accountants weighing in on what offers the best initial value and ROI over the long term. But even when the public/private/hybrid question gets answered and a cloud deployment moves forward new questions emerge, most importantly the “type” of cloud service a company wants to use.Three main forms have emerged: software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (Paas). But how does a company choose?
Choices, Choices
First, companies need to understand what each type of cloud service offers. IaaS is the “blank-slate” choice, where a provider offers the backbone of servers but almost all other control rests with local IT admins. Everything from provisioning instances, allocating storage and allocating IP addresses rests in the hands of the company.
PaaS, meanwhile, offers a middle ground – giving companies control over Web servers and databases but taking care of basic functionality. SaaS is the catch-all for just about everything else, letting companies pick and choose what applications they want to run and delivering them via the cloud. Platform and infrastructure choices in a SaaS-heavy deployment all rest with the provider.
A helpful comparison here is food. IaaS deployments are like farms with fields left un-planted; providers offer fertile soil but IT professionals need to do all the heavy lifting to grow a decent cloud environment. PaaS gives a home-cooked meal experience by serving up most of the necessary components but still letting users choose what they want to make and how they want it cooked.
Finally, SaaS is like stepping up to a buffet. It may not always have what you want but there’s more than you could ever eat – you don’t tell the chef how to cook, however.
Future Service
Pundits like to offer their opinions on which form of cloud computing will eventually dominate the market, but so far it’s anyone’s guess. Recent numbers put SaaS revenues at approximately $14 billion through 2012 and IaaS at just over $6 billion, with Paas lagging at $1.2 billion. In part this is because of the relative age of PaaS – of the three types, it’s youngest and only now hitting its stride.
Benefits include the ability to tailor-make applications instead of using only what SaaS developers offer, and dedicate more time to environment development rather than managing basic server functions. But no matter the ultimate breakdown, what’s important here is the diversification of cloud computing, not which type takes home the biggest payday.
The maturation of the market means more choices than ever for IT admins, most easily categorized by the three divisions as noted above, though these certainly aren’t the only options available – business process as a service (BPaaS) and data as a service (DaaS) are also emerging markets for cloud providers.
Simply put, the first foray into a cloud appears complicated but often boils down to a simple set of questions: what does a company want to do, and how much control do they want over how they do it?
Doug Bonderud About the Guest Author:
Doug Bonderud is a freelance writer, cloud proponent, business technology analyst and a contributor on the Dataprise website.
