Which of the following statements best describes the service that a customer might purchase for cloud-based application development from a PaaS provider?
A. The customer purchases virtual storage from a provider on which to store source code.
B. The customer rents software from the provider and does not need to develop applications.
C. The customer purchases virtual hardware to run development tools on an as-needed basis.
D. The customer does not need to manage the underlying infrastructure.
Explanation:
A customer does not need to manage the underlying infrastructure if the customer purchases Platform as a Service (PaaS) from a provider. PaaS, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) are cloud computing models. Customers purchase these cloud computing services to ease administrative overhead at the local level. Eliminating the need to deploy physical servers, infrastructure, or application updates to a local network enables the customer to focus on primary business tasks. Providers that offer a variety of cloud computing services are sometimes known as Anything as a Service (XaaS) providers.
PaaS customers use the provider’s development tools or Application Programming Interface (API) to develop and deploy specific cloud-based applications or services instead of only using the third party’s infrastructure to build and deploy cloud-based server or host environments. An example of PaaS might be using the provider’s MySQL database and Apache services to build a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform.
A customer might purchase virtual hardware to run development tools on an as-needed basis if the customer is purchasing IaaS. IaaS enables an organization to use the hardware resources of a third party, such as processing, networking, and file system resources, to house and configure virtual hosts. For example, a company that wanted to establish a web server farm by configuring multiple Linux Apache MySQL PHP (LAMP) servers could save hardware costs by virtualizing the farm and using a third-party cloud service to provide the physical infrastructure and bandwidth for the virtual farm. Control over the operating system (OS), software, and server configuration would remain the responsibility of the organization, whereas the physical infrastructure and bandwidth would be the responsibility of the third-party provider.
A customer might rent software from a provider if the customer is purchasing SaaS. SaaS providers use an Internet-enabled licensing function, a streaming service, or a web application to provide end users with software that they might otherwise install and activate locally. Web-based email clients, such as Gmail and Hotmail, are examples of SaaS. Other examples include Microsoft 365 and Adobe Creative Cloud, both of which enable the user to download and install the software locally but require an Internet connection to regularly validate licenses.
A customer might purchase virtual storage from a provider on which to store source code if the customer is purchasing Storage as a Service. Storage as a Service is a more granular cloud computing model that can be considered a submodel of IaaS. Each cloud computing model can have multiple submodels. For example, Database as a Service (DBaaS) is a submodel of the PaaS cloud computing model.
Although cloud services such as IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS can decrease costs, they can increase risks. When Internet service is interrupted, access to those resources is also interrupted. Also, a company’s confidential data might be stored on a third-party server to which the company does not have full administrative control; if security is not adequate, data breaches can occur.