PaaS is a term you will often here alongside cloud computing. It follows the common formula of services that revolve around cloud computing and the provision of computing resources as a flexible and scalable service.
PaaS stands for platform as a service and it refers to the provision of a development platform as a service based model.
The development platform provides developers with everything that they need to design, build, deploy and scale applications without the need for setting up any complex environments, thinking about provisioning, scaling or any of the other headaches usually faced by developers from an infrastructure point of view.
The service part pertains to the fact that this model is delivered off of the shelf and ready to go – there is no setup or configuration the end-user or developer will simply pay a monthly fee for using this platform as a service.
There are many advantages to this solution:
- Speed of deployment – The system can be deployed as quickly as you can click “buy now” which means its great for getting a project going.
- Reliability – Because these systems are already well developed and up and running the reliability is very high – especially when compared to a brand new system that may be installed and configured by the developers themselves.
- Security – again because the system is being offered as a professional service and has been built, tested and used in practice, security is very high in comparison to other home-grown platforms.
- Scalability – Due to the nature of the service and the fact that by definition it runs on a cloud infrastructure scaling the platform is both cost effective and easy.