Planning for Cloud Integration: Pitfalls and Advantages - Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure - page 380

Platform as a Service (PaaS)
PaaS provides an environment to the customer to build and deploy custom cloud applications
and services. A customer can focus on the business idea and applications and worry less about
setting up the environment. Here are a couple of suitable use cases for PaaS:
Testing New Business Ideas and Services Enterprises usually go through a proof-of-
concept evaluation of new business ideas before committing to put them in production.
The biggest hurdle to testing implementation of a new business idea used to be setting up
the whole physical environment or upgrading the facility. Most enterprises lacking finan-
cial resources resorted to either limiting the scope of the test implementation or completely
bypassing it altogether. Without proper evaluation, good business ideas may not even leave
the drawing board. The PaaS model makes this easier by providing the necessary resources
to implement the business idea and an infrastructure to perform testing, and allows saving
images for future usage.
Website Hosting Web-site hosting is still the most common business use case for the PaaS
cloud service model. While companies can host their web presence on their own data centers,
the scale and ability to grow and reach new markets is an immense advantage gained through
the use of a cloud solution. Moreover, if a website or web service is built for the cloud, it will
be inherently prepared to scale and grow based on demand.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS provides an application or service that can be accessed over the Web using a variety
of thin clients (web browsers) on either computers or smartdevices (phones and tablets).
The major benefits include the immediate availability of a working solution and no upfront
investments. Major disadvantages include loss of governance, data privacy issues for cus-
tomer data. Some of the most suitable use cases for SaaS model are mentioned in the fol-
lowing list:
Web Services Such as Email, Social Media, and Blogging These are classic use cases for
the SaaS model. Email services, social media services, and blogging websites are the most
suitable because SaaS provides the scalability, availability, and accessibility required by
these services.
File Storage, Synchronization, and Sharing Online file storage and synchronization
services are becoming increasingly common because users can access them from anywhere
with a device and an Internet connection. Small to medium-sized companies prefer to using
such services so they can keep their data and files with one service vendor.
Finance, E-commerce, Accounting, Inventory, CRM, and ERP Software Applications
Some companies want to increase their sales by enabling shopping carts. Others want to
keep an eye on their accounts and inventory. And still others want CRM and ERP systems
in place. Options are straightforward: either develop and deploy in-house or purchase cloud
services with all their benefits, such as scalability, availability, and accessibility.