What exactly is PaaS? What is Platform as a service? differs from IaaS and SaaS

Aug 30, 2022
What is PaaS

PaaS (Platform as a Service) is a combination of servers, storage as well as network infrastructure to provide the necessary software for the deployment of applications. When you use PaaS it is not necessary to invest in on-premise hardware or fret about creating a virtual infrastructure for your applications.

PaaS offers all the tools you need to realize these goals and more.

Let's explore what PaaS is, some actual PaaS examples, market share of leading PaaS companies, and much more.

What Is PaaS? (With Examples)

AWS Elastic Beanstalk
AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Google App Engine
Google App Engine

The services offered are different in comparison to hiring storage space, or using a virtual machine. The PaaS solution serves as a ready-made platform to take your app online.

It is possible to rent the hardware on its own in the category of IaaS but not PaaS.

We'll take a look at the differences between these two categories.

What is the difference between IaaS as well as PaaS?

To make things even more confusing, many PaaS companies also provide IaaS solutions and vice versa.

Let's eliminate the confusion through comparing certain items.

PaaS Example IaaS Examples
AWS Elastic Beanstalk AWS EC2
Google App Engine Google Compute Engine (GCE)
Microsoft Azure App Service Microsoft Azure Storage
IBM Cloud Foundry IBM Cloud Virtual Servers
DigitalOcean App Platform DigitalOcean Droplets
Heroku

This is the main difference.

An PaaS is a solution that is packaged that can help you create and launch your application, in contrast, an IaaS can be described as the cloud infrastructure that's basic.

In certain instances, the vendors like AWS, Google, and Microsoft will only charge you to use their resources, and not charge you to use their software platform.

What's the Difference Between SaaS and PaaS?

Salesforce dashboard
Salesforce dashboard

All you need to do is sign up then it's available for make use of. That's the principle of a SaaS service.

For a better understanding of the differences, let's examine some more examples.

Cloud Service Type Examples
SaaS Google Workspace, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, IBM Watson Assistant, Salesforce, Workday, Slack
PaaS AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Google App Engine, Microsoft Azure App Service, Heroku, IBM Cloud Foundry

A SaaS product can be put to use the second anyone signs up. For example, once you sign up with Google Docs, you can begin creating, saving as well as sharing your documents.

But Google App Engine or IBM Cloud Foundry aren't complete solutions to business issues. Instead, they're cloud-based platforms that allow you to create custom apps.

PaaS market size, share and Leading Vendors

The PaaS market's estimated size and the way it is compared to other cloud services depend on the source.

As an example, as per Gartner Gartner, PaaS will be dwarfed by IaaS in 2021, with $27.5 billion in revenue vs. $61.9 billion in sales.

Public cloud market share (Source: Gartner)
Public cloud market share (Source: Gartner)

This would mean that the IaaS market nearly double that of PaaS. IaaS makes up a large portion of the entire cloud services market, while PaaS is almost a niche product by comparison.

However, other studies show another image.

Based on International Data Corporation (IDC) statistics, 2019 revenues were much lower than in the past, and PaaS a lot larger, in the range of $35.9 billion versus $49 billion.

Cloud services market share (Source: Gartner)
Worldwide public cloud services market growth (Source: Gartner)

Both segments have been growing at nearly similar rates, with 38.4 percentage YoY growth for IaaS as well as 38.8 percent increase for PaaS.

While PaaS may not be closing the gap however, it's certainly not trailing also.

That may be the reason SaaS and PaaS are considerably larger on their table.

Top Vendors and Their Market Share

Since 2016, cloud analysts, industry experts, research companies as well as experts have moved from separate reporting to covering the public cloud industries that comprise IaaS and PaaS together.

Public-Cloud-Services-Market-Share-2019-IDC
Public Cloud Services Market Share - 2019 (Source: IDC)

One of the major reasons for this is that the leading players are mostly the same across both categories.

There are familiar names such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and IBM regardless of whether you're looking at the IaaS or PaaS markets.

Another reason is that market leaders tend to combine both IaaS and PaaS services together, so it's difficult to differentiate the revenues.

PaaS and IaaS revenue share (Source: Statista)
PaaS as well as IaaS revenue share (Source: Statista)

Together, they make up over 54 percent of all IaaS and PaaS revenue around the world.

Following the top US providers, you have China's Alibaba with 4.4% and NTT Data from Japan. NTT Data at 2.8 percent percent of total worldwide revenue.

It's a US-led industry globally in terms of actual use and ongoing innovation.

AWS is the top IaaS and PaaS service provider, and will continue to increase its growth rate rapidly through 2021.

What services does PaaS include?

While the primary use case of PaaS is the deployment of web apps, many other cloud services are also included.

Let's look at it a bit closer.

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

A cloud-hosted database which you install manually in a virtual computer is only an implementation of IaaS.

One example could be one of these is Azure SQL Database feature, which offers a fully managed database that is updated automatically as well as scalability, intelligent threat protection and AI-powered searching.

Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL Database

Cloud-based service offerings that fall under this category can also be known as DBaaS which is a subcategory within PaaS.

Internet of Things (IoT) Platforms

Mobile Services (APIs)

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Additionally, they use automated SMS messages on a large scale.

With SMS APIs, companies are able to integrate automated messaging into their apps.

As an example, they could send customers texts to:

  • Inform them about scheduled phone calls or scheduled meetings.
  • Promote a related new product or service.

They are often classified independently in the form of Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) or a PaaS subcategory.

Push Notification APIs

Like SMS text messages, except for browser and mobile push notifications, these APIs are the power behind push notifications.

You can use them to:

  • Remind customers to install the latest version of your application.
  • Advertise a relevant limited-time promotion.

Machine Learning

If you truly want to take advantage of the data you have, it's not enough to keep it on the cloud. Data is being stored, just in a new location.

There is a need to create algorithms to sift through your information and uncover meaningful insights and actionable steps.

IBM Watson Studio
IBM Watson Studio

For example, IBM Watson Studio lets you automate AI lifecycle management, and deploy and run models using a single mouse click, and much more.

It's an excellent PaaS environment to make use of large data.

AI-powered suggestions and search are also part of the PaaS development tools the big four provide.

Hadoop, Spark, and Other Data Processing Frameworks

Apache Hadoop is an open source software framework which allows you to handle large data sets through large virtual clusters.

  • Google offers Hadoop as an integrated part of its Dataproc Big Data Processing service.
  • Microsoft offers Hadoop as part of its HDInsight data processing service.
  • IBM offers Hadoop within BigInsights.
  • AWS offers Hadoop as well as Spark in the context of EMR.

These leading companies also offer custom data lake and other data processing solutions that go in addition to Hadoop.

Many of the most popular cloud services are PaaS. Take a look at the results from a 2020 survey on public cloud services.

The most popular cloud service (Source: Flexera)
Cloud service with the highest popularity (Source: Flexera)

Cloud-based relational databases are among the most popular database type, having the majority of of businesses employing the databases, 17% trying them out with them, and 10 percent planning to use the databases.

Thirdly, you can use data warehousing. 53 percent of companies currently use this method of processing and analysis of large amounts of datasets.

Google Cloud BigQuery is an illustration of this kind of PaaS product.

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The Four Leading PaaS Providers: What Features Can They Provide?

In the past, we've discussed in the realm of cloud-based public services there are four distinct market top players.

But how do they compare to one another with respect to PaaS offering?

In the next section, we'll take closer look at every notable cloud service provider and what they have to offer.

AWS

AWS is the original cloud computing provider, having started the cloud computing revolution by launching its first EC2 product in the year 2006.

The head start cemented them as the clear market leader, and it's still the largest cloud services company in the world.

However, for PaaS particularly, just what exactly does it bring to the table?

A quick look at Amazon's service overview will inform all you have to learn about.

AWS services overview
AWS Services Overview

The majority of the highlighted instances actually are the use of a PaaS product. Let's break down precisely what AWS can offer in terms of PaaS services.

PaaS Service AWS
App Deployment Amazon Elastic Beanstalk
Big Data Processing Amazon EMR
Data Warehousing Amazon Redshift
DBaaS Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS
Notifications (SMS, Email Notifications (SMS, Email) Amazon SNS
Machine Learning Amazon SageMaker

The days when AWS provided only computing power and virtual machines for rent are over.

There are now custom solutions to meet every major PaaS application and service that ranges from application deployment to large data to DBaaS as well as machine learning.

If you're looking for the most flexible PaaS provider, you can't be wrong choosing the most knowledgeable veteran.

IBM Cloud

What is the story with IBM Cloud? An early innovator in the field of computing, IBM has invested lots of effort and money in the development of its cloud-based services suite.

IBM initially launched its PaaS services under the name IBM Bluemix in the year 2014.

In 2017, IBM dropped the Bluemix brand and grouped the company's PaaS, IaaS, and cloud services that are private within IBM Cloud. IBM Cloud umbrella.

With a wide range of business clients IBM Cloud has quickly grown to become one of the leading PaaS providers since its launch in 2011.

And that shows in its service offerings:

IBM Cloud products overview
IBM Cloud products overview

How do IBM stack up in the PaaS department?

PaaS Service IBM Cloud
App Deployment IBM Cloud Foundry
Big Data Processing IBM BigInsights
Data Warehousing IBM DB2
DBaaS IBM Cloud Databases (Redis, PostgreSQL, etc.)
Notifications (SMS Notifications (Email, SMS Notifications (SMS, Email) IBM Push Notifications or SMS (through third-party service providers)
Machine Learning IBM Watson Studio, IBM Watson

IBM Cloud covers essential PaaS applications like application deployment Big Data Processing, and data warehousing.

For notifications, IBM does not offer the complete solution as of yet. The only option is to use the third party providers such as Twilio to introduce SMS into the workflow of your application.

And IBM has long been on the frontier of machine learning as well as AI. IBM Deep Blue became the first AI to beat the world champion in chess back in 1997.

IBM Watson Studio IBM Watson Studio makes it easy to put Watson AI to work. Watson AI to work, to help you understand the data you have.

Google Cloud

Google also lets you rent the platforms and infrastructure which allow you to process billions of visits each month.

Launched in 2008, Google Cloud was the second big player to join the market. The extensive range of services it offers illustrates why it's among the top players in the market.

Google Cloud products overview
Google Cloud products overview

And for PasS-specific products it's the same.

PaaS Service Google Cloud
App Deployment Google App Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine
Big Data Processing Google Dataproc
Data Warehousing Google BigQuery
DBaaS Google BigTable, Google Cloud SQL, etc.
Notifications (SMS or Email Push, SMS) Firebase Cloud Messaging (Push and In-App messages)
Machine Learning Google AI Platform

For app deployment and development, Google offers a wide range of tools, including Kubernetes Engine and Google App Engine. Google App Engine and Kubernetes Engine.

For regular databases and warehousing, Google also offers several alternatives, including BigTable, Google Cloud SQL and much more.

With Firebase Cloud Messaging it is possible to schedule and send push notifications and in-app messages, but not messages.

Google AI platform offers a user-friendly interface to create as well as manage and deploy new machine learning models as swiftly as it is feasible.

The platform is complete and suitable for your PaaS needs.

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft isn't only responsible for operating systems on most desktops and laptops around the globe.

Azure Cloud Platform Azure cloud platform provides a range of services from AI and machine learning to analysis, development tools for data processing, many more.

Azure products overview
Overview of Azure's products

On the other hand, at the level of the platform Microsoft has you covered too.

PaaS Service Microsoft Azure
App Deployment Azure App Service
Big Data Processing Azure Databricks
Data Warehousing Azure SQL Data Warehouse
DBaaS Azure SQL Database
Notifications (SMS or Email Push, SMS) Azure Notification Hubs (Push), Azure Communication Services (SMS, Voice)
Machine Learning Azure Machine Learning

It is possible to store and process information using a variety of SQL-based solutions like a data warehouse or a smaller-scale database. It is possible to make use of Azure Machine Learning to create and implement models that understand the data you have.

Azure is also able to integrate automatic push notifications and SMS messages to your mobile app.

Summary

PaaS isn't only about providing you the resources and computing capabilities you need to collect, share, and implement data more efficiently across your business. The service also provides the infrastructure that allows you to use the data in real-time and implement internal or external software.

If you have any questions about , or have had any experiences with PaaS products and services Please drop us a message to us in the comment box!

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