2014 will be the Year of Platform as a Service

1. What does platform as a service (PaaS) mean in real terms?
Frederik Bijlsma: Platform as a service (PaaS) essentially describes the middle layer in the cloud computing services model. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is the underlying foundation in a cloud stack and offers demand-based access to computing power and storage space. The third and top layer in the cloud stack after IaaS and PaaS is software as a service (SaaS), which offers access to standard applications. Based on these basic components, there are many variations of the cloud stack and, in turn, a PaaS environment.
Elmar Stöcker: There are various PaaS definitions on the market. According to analysts at Gartner, a PaaS environment consists of an application platform for software development, middleware services, and business process management, among other things (source: http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/platform-as-a-service-paas). These are the key elements of a PaaS environment.

2. Why should companies use a PaaS environment?
Elmar Stöcker: We know from meetings and discussions with our customers that there is considerable demand for PaaS. There are two reasons for this. The first is when it is a matter of introducing new and innovative products and services. In our experience, creating a runtime environment, or in other words, developing the hardware, installing the operating system and middleware stack etc., is the most time-consuming process. It can take weeks before the project team can even get started. A cloud-based software development platform that is ready for immediate use puts companies in a position to considerably reduce their time-to-market. The second reason is the opportunity to standardize a heterogeneous tools landscape for software development in the various specialist departments. Heterogeneity is expensive to purchase and operate. In contrast, PaaS offers a standardized and significantly more efficient and cost-effective environment for developing, testing, and hosting applications.

3. Who are the principal users of a PaaS platform?
Frederik Bijlsma: Typical PaaS users fall into three large groups. The first group is comprised of business process designers. They use the tools available in a PaaS environment to design and visualize business processes. The second group is made up of the software developers we mentioned earlier. Especially when software developers are working with agile software development methods, a cloud-based environment that meets high security requirements offers ideal conditions to achieve favorable results together with the future users of a new application. In other words: Agile software development and PaaS complement each other perfectly. Thirdly and finally, system integrators also benefit from a PaaS environment when an application that has been created needs to be integrated into a customer’s hybrid cloud system landscape. We are seeing a lot of demand here.
Elmar Stöcker: I’d like to add something here. A PaaS environment offers excellent opportunities to link software development with operation of the finished application. DevOps is the keyword. This puts companies in a position to implement new requirements in applications faster. The error rate falls when small and manageable software units are regularly and automatically put into productive operation.

4. What requirements does a PaaS environment have to satisfy?
Elmar Stöcker: We’ve already mentioned aspects like flexibility, scalability, and support for agile software development. In addition, a platform as a service has to be available as a multi-tenant environment and thereby be able to serve multiple developers or clients without granting any one user access to the data of another. Pay-per-use (PPU) is another requirement. These requirements were the central design principles of the Cloud Integration Center, a private cloud service from T-Systems. OpenShift from Red Hat is the PaaS solution. It supports software development with various programming languages, frameworks, and runtime environments.
Frederik Bijlsma: Three major IT development lines come together in a PaaS environment: cloud computing, agile software development, and DevOps. Put together, all of these functions allow companies to quickly and flexibly build software development environments and use high-performance tools to provide applications. As a result, there is a good chance that 2014 will be the year of platform as a service.