PaaS – Platform as a Service

Platform as a service (PaaS) or application platform as a service (aPaaS) or platform-based service is a category of cloud computing services that allows customers to provision, instantiate, run, and manage a modular bundle comprising a computing platform and one or more applications, without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing and launching the application(s); and to allow developers to create, develop, and package such software bundles.

PaaS can be delivered in three ways:

• As a public cloud service from a provider, where the consumer controls software deployment with minimal configuration options, and the provider provides the networks, servers, storage, operating system (OS), middleware (ex. Java runtime, .NET runtime, integration, etc.), database and other services to host the consumer’s application.
• As a private service (software or appliance) behind a firewall.
• As software deployed on public infrastructure as a service.