Business 101

Cloud Computing

Chapter 3 Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Learning Objectives

• • • • Define and describe the PaaS model. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of PaaS solutions. List and describe several real-world PaaS solutions. List and describe cloud-based database solutions and describe their advantages. • Discuss the development history that led to PaaS.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

• Provide a collection of hardware and software resources that developers can use to build and deploy applications within the cloud. • Depending on their needs, developers may use a Windowsbased PaaS solution or a Linuxbased PaaS.

PaaS Advantages

• Developers eliminate the need to buy and maintain hardware, and the need to install and manage operating system and database software. • Because the computing resources no longer reside in the data center, but rather in the cloud, the resources can scale on demand and the company can pay for only resources it consumes. • Further, because PaaS eliminates the developers’ need to worry about servers, they can more quickly deploy their web-based solutions.

PaaS Disadvantages

• Some developers and administrators want finer control over the underlying systems (versions, patch releases/applications, …)

Real World: Google App Engine

• Google App Engine, sometimes called GAE, is a PaaS solution that lets developers create and host web-based applications that reside and run on services managed by Google. • Like many Google services and offerings, Google App Engine is a free service. • Google App Engine provides platform support for a variety of programming languages, the three most common of which are Java, Python, and Go.

Google App Engine Continued

• Google App Engine features include the following:

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Support for dynamic web pages Data storage and query support Load balancing for application scalability Application program interface (API) support for application-based email through Google...