Utilizing IaaS to get to PaaS

by Xtium Research

Companies looking to implement a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) infrastructure but unprepared for the transition can leverage Infrastructure-as-a-Service. According to Network Computing, businesses are becoming aware of this fact and rapidly implementing a cloud structure. At the moment, the IaaS and PaaS markets are $6 billion and $1.2 billion respectively, as reported by Gartner, but PaaS seems to be gaining more traction than its counterpart in recent months.

Businesses looking for virtualization and access to a large amount of high end servers without the maintenance can utilize IaaS, making it perfect for enterprises that have newly entered the cloud computing market. As the business becomes more accustomed to the environment, it can make a switch to a slightly more IT-centered structure, such as PaaS, that allows the company to retain scalability while receiving even more flexibility.

NetworkComputing went as far as to claim that PaaS can offer things IaaS cannot because it breaks the interdependence between software and operating systems.

How the cloud has reshaped app development
Application developers are quickly realizing the demand for cloud-based applications and have started switching over to SaaS deployments that are progressive, "modular" and "fault-tolerant independent of the underlying hardware," the news source stated.

In other words, the software world has developed in two ways: applications are more malleable to consumer needs and there is less of a reliance on hardware in order to run smoothly. A hardware fault can no longer bring down development and grind work to a halt. Instead, users should expect that the SaaS vendor programs its software in a way that will prevent crashes by scaling and restarting automatically.

Many applications that were booming before the cloud have been reshaped in order to fit the needs of a growing cloud using workforce. Businesses have come to expect flexibility and control over internal data, and PaaS is delivering. SaaS developers are simply trying to keep up. One of the reasons behind the technology's rapid rise may be that it reduces major IT costs like hardware upkeep and internal upgrades, allowing companies to restructure resources and focus on future projects.

At the moment, IaaS continues to have the upper hand as companies aim to save the greatest amount of money while still moving toward a virtualized environment, but as the benefits of PaaS become more well known, expect the infrastructure's popularity to rise correspondingly.