Welcome, lets look at the 3 Main Categories & Services of Cloud Computing – SAAS, IAAS, PAAS. First of all, it’s important to know that the “Cloud” is now in every sector today in technology. Whether it is little or large data storage, or communicating and sharing files with friends and colleagues, a lot of desktop and mobile apps and devices interact with the cloud technology. The Types of Cloud Computing Explained as you read on.
Since we now know that, you might ask about what makes up the cloud? What are the three types of cloud deployment models? If you do a research, you will discover that Cloud computing can categorized into three (3) main services. They are; Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
SAAS, IAAS, PAAS
As a matter of fact, these three (3) services mentioned above makes up what Rackspace calls the Cloud Computing Stack, with SaaS on top, PaaS in the center, and IaaS on the bottom of the stack. The stack appears like a pyramid.
The major reason why the SaaS is on the top of the stack is simply because you can interact primarily with software hosted on the cloud. Users do not interact on the platform or infrastructure on which it runs upon. On the other hand, the PaaS allows you to create and deploy applications. The IaaS is simply the infrastructure and hardware that powers the cloud to Saas can function.
While making research on this topic, it was seen that Rackspace wrote an article and used a transportation system to help envisage each section of the stack.
Autonomous Cars
From their illustration, the series of the marked roadways and highways represents IaaS; the moving cars and trucks on the highways represents PaaS, and the people and people carried on the vehicles represent SaaS.
Apart from autonomous vehicles, you will agree with me that without people, the trucks and cars cannot move from point A to B, and without trucks and cars, the roadways would not be useful. With the analogy above, you will notice that each service builds on each other for a full experience, but can also interact separately as required. You can also checkout the Ethical Questions about Self Driving Cars from the related articles.
The IaaS allows you to lease the infrastructure itself; which is the servers, data center space, and software. The main benefit of leasing instead of owning infrastructure completely is that you can increase the amount of space you need at any specific time. Read about Amazon Virtual Private Cloud & Web Service.
For example, an online store retailer may need an increased server space to handle high visitor traffic during busy holiday seasons than in the off-season. Now you see? Making use of IaaS lets the online retailer to save cost by only making payment for what his online portal/website will use within a specific period of time.
Related: Retail Industry Adopts Cloud computing & Benefits from it
As an IT specialist, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) allows you as a developer to create your applications, team up on projects, and test your application functionality without any need to buy or maintain a whole infrastructure.
Your projects and development platforms can be easily accessed from anywhere and anytime as far as there is an internet connection. This will allow your team members to stay connected and keep working and interacting with each other.
Some years ago, (before it was even called cloud computing!), when companies wanted to buy and deploy a new software or update previous ones, they were quite expensive and also time consuming process to setup. But then, with SaaS in recent times, software can quickly be deployed with ease, since it has already been installed on the cloud server.
As with Platform-as-a-service (PaaS), users only need access to a computer with an internet connection to make use of the software. The most important part is that they never have to worry about patching or upgrading the software as it was done in the early days. Now you can see that SaaS can reduce expenses for you, since you only have to pay for precisely what you need and do not have to maintain the whole software.
Categories/Services of Cloud computing
Putting the Categories/Services of Cloud computing together, these above mentioned three types of services can work together to save companies time. It similarly helps to reduce cost in deploying and maintaining hardware and software. It can also keep people from different locations connected together and work as a team on a project.
If you need a cloud service, you can review top cloud service vendors online that offer a wide variety of Software-as-a-Service solutions, including customer service, IT help desk, asset management, knowledge management, and IT change management.
Make sure you find a Cloud Provider that has each of these solutions easily deployed. Ensure that you opt-in to services that are highly customizable, and on the long run delivers robust reports for high quality decision-making.
If you are in the healthcare sector, please carefully locate software that is also HIPAA compliant to ensure that sensitive patient information is secure for clients in your healthcare system.
In summary, what are the 3 major types of cloud computing service?
In a recap, remember that Cloud computing can be broken up into three main services which is the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). As has been noted, these 3 services make up what we said Rackspace calls the Cloud Computing Stack, with SaaS on top, PaaS in the middle, and IaaS on the bottom. 3 Main Categories/Services of Cloud Computing | SAAS-IAAS-PAAS was the purpose of this article. In our next post, we will feature the differences among iaas, paas, and saas.
