What is SAAS, PAAS and IAAS & How to Use it

This is a very old technology which goes back to 1960’s but now a days more and more companies are coming forward with this concept of “AS A Service”.

Confused….? let me first define these terms and then go about explaining them.

Definition of SAAS, PAAS and IAAS

SAAS- Software As A Service

PAAS – Platform As A Service

IAAS- Infrastructure As A Service.

DaAAS- Database As A Service

 

SAAS- Software As A Service

Now a days when price of any technology goes down with time SAAS or any other such technologies are picking up and maximum service providers want to take bigger pie of the market which stands at $300B licensed Software Industry. Demand for SAAS or more broadly AAS is being driven by real business needs because of its ability to drive down IT-related costs, decrease deployment times, and foster innovation.

To explain these terms lets take an example of a Adobe Software which in normal case we have to ‘buy it to use it’ else we will be violating the licence. This concept is Called as ‘Software As A Product’. Now remember the Cloud Concept where you can put all your files and data, you can now put your software too which can be accessed by many for a little money either by subscription fee or support fees.

The easiest way to understand these as-a-service offerings is to start with SaaS, the most abstract layer and the one you may already be using today, even at a personal level.

A simple example of SaaS is an online email service, like Gmail. If you use Gmail, you are not hosting your own email server. Google is hosting it, and you are simply accessing it through your browser-as-client. But now a days its not just email that your company uses, but there are too many applications online for many different business purposes.

In simple words instead of buying a software for $500 you can rent it at $5 Ex: Photo express by Adobe which lets you to edit images online. Now you know how beneficial SAAS can be in reducing your IT cost let it be email servers, CRM, NetSuite, or ADSK.

PAAS – Platform As A Service

Application development requires hardware, an operating system, a database, middleware, Web servers, and other software, If you know how to integrate all these thing with an API then the rest is taken care of by the PaaS provider. ‘Hardware or an operating system’ acts like a platform which is given as a ‘Service’

IAAS – Infrastructure As A Service

This is the  scenario where you have bought software but don’t want to buy infrastructure(ex: you have Adobe Software but don’t have personal computer). So you rent it from a IAAS provider. Example is that of hosting where you can buy servers or rent them for your high traffic websites.

All this indicates that you have much wider options than that what you had 5 yrs back. Keeping yourself up-to-date with the technology can help your business grow leaps and bounds. I wish you all the best and hope you use the technology at it best.