What is the difference between SaaS vs PaaS vs IaaS in cloud computing ? Which option to choose and when ?
In general, when building On-Premises data center, the following components are required based on the needs of the organization:
• Applications
• Data
• Runtime Environment
• Middleware
• O/S
• Virtualization
• Servers
• Storage
• Networking
When it comes to Cloud solution, majority of the Cloud service providers such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
can provide all the above options using cloud technologies.
But, sometimes the organizations may not need all the above, they may need only some of the services.
To address these needs Cloud Computing has been organized in to the following three aspects:
SaaS – Software as a Service
In this option all the following services are available in the cloud.
• Applications
• Data
• Runtime Environment
• Middleware
• O/S
• Virtualization
• Servers
• Storage
• Networking
Examples for SaaS:Salesforce, Google Apps, Cisco WebEx and so on.
PaaS – Platform as a Service
In this option the following services are available in the cloud.
• Runtime Environment
• Middleware
• O/S
• Virtualization
• Servers
• Storage
• Networking
But the Applications and Data are not Cloud Service providers responsibility.
Examples for PaaS: Force.com AWS Elastic Beanstalk, OpenShift and so on.
IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service
In this option the following services are available in the cloud.
• Virtualization
• Servers
• Storage
• Networking
But the Applications, Data, Runtime Environment, Middleware and O/S are not Cloud Service provider responsibility.
Examples for PaaS: AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure, Google Compute Engine and so on.