PaaS: The Next Frontier in the Cloud

Grazed from IT Business Edge. Author: Arthor Cole.

A cloud of many faces is taking shape before our eyes. It is common knowledge by now that the cloud is not merely an extension of the data center but an entirely new data ecosystem that can grow, change, and yes, evolve into a wide range of configurations, just as any organic creature is able to adapt to changing environments. In many ways, this change can be anticipated and planned for, but as the market matures, you can bet there will be a fair number of unexpected developments as well.

But to get the kind of flexibility to handle both the expected and the unexpected, enterprises will have to shed much of the thinking that has governed cloud deployments so far. This is not merely an extension of current data infrastructure but an entirely new way to doing things. Much of the attention in the cloud is turning away from simple applications and infrastructure to fully cloud-based development platforms because of this new way of thinking…

At the moment, cloud services generally fall into three broad categories: Software-, Platform- and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (SaaS, PaaS and IaaS, respectively). SaaS was the first out of the gate with companies like Salesforce hosting versions of popular enterprise applications, followed by the current surge of IaaS implementations for bulk storage and data backup. But PaaS is expected to eclipse them both in the next few years as enterprises seek to boost app development and provisioning without running up huge capital budgets. According to 451 Research, PaaS is the fastest growing cloud sector, hitting 41 percent growth in 2012 largely from the rapid uptake of Lifecycle Management-as-a-Service deployments. At this rate, cloud computing in general is expected to surge from a $5.7 billion market in 2012 to $20 billion by 2016…

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