IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS

If you are thinking of moving your e-commerce business to the cloud there are 3 important terminologies you should understand:

• IaaS
• PaaS
• SaaS

The use of these services have increased because of the increased move of businesses and brands to the cloud.

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

Is a form of cloud computing where hardware is provided and managed by an EXTERNAL provider. This hardware is provided in the cloud environment and can include anything from virtual servers to network connections and load balancers.

IaaS provides you the computing infrastructure — physical and in most cases virtual machines and other resources like virtual machine disk, firewalls,IP addresses.

As it becomes less common to invest in physical hardware and IT infrastructure, choosing IaaS is a safer, more reliable option as users only pay for the usage of servers, saving them the cost and associated ongoing maintenance of investing in physical hardware. You can buy what you need as you need it, and purchase more as your business grows.

Example of IaaS providers are amazon web services(AWS) EC2, Google compute engine(GCE) .

Advantages of using IaaS solutions

• Maintaining on premise(software that’s installed in your office/work place) IT infrastructure is costly and labor intensive.
• It is accessible to multiple users.
• IaaS solutions are highly flexible and scalable as you can replace it whenever you need without losing money on your initial investment.
• You have absolute control over the infrastructure as you can access and oversee IaaS platforms if and when you wish.
• You can cancel anytime as it is subscription based.

Platform as a service(PaaS)

Is a form of cloud computing that allows a dedicated space to build and test applications. It is mostly used by software and web developers, although it can be used by a business who wants to create and test their own internal software.

PaaS provides you computing platforms which typically includes operating system, language execution, database, web servers etc.

A PaaS solution provides the platform for developers to create unique, customizable software. Any platform updates, security patches and general maintenance to their store would be the responsibility of the merchant.

Examples of PaaS providers are amazon web services(AWS) elastic beanstalk, Windows Azure, OpenShift etc.

Advantages of using PaaS services

• Both hardware and software tools are available over the internet.
• Developers do not need to start from scratch creating codes.
• Also subscription based.
• You can choose from various tiers of resources to suit your business type.

Software as a service(SaaS)

Is a cloud computing where software applications are delivered over the internet through the cloud and that’s why SaaS is often referred to as cloud software. The software isn’t localized on a specific PC but rather accessed via an internet connection.

Using SaaS, you no longer need to engage an IT specialist to download the software onto multiple computers throughout your office or worry about keeping the software on every computer up to date, it’s all taken of in the cloud.

Examples of SaaS providers are Hubspot, Google apps, Mailchimp etc.

Advantages of SaaS

• Software is available via third party through the internet.
• Also scalable and flexible — as you can choose from various tiers of resources to use.
• Can be accessed by multiple users.
• With SaaS you don’t need to install and run the software on your computer, it can be accessed via your account on the internet.

Here’s a simpler demographic using pizza as an analogy by Hosting Advice

The level of system administration decreases as you go down the list:

On-premise > IaaS > PaaS > SaaS

Now you can choose what platform level of cloud computing that’s best suited for your business type.