PaaS Market on the Cusp of Strategic Growth

Bangalore: Platform as a service (PaaS) is the base foundation and a core layer of cloud computing architecture. PaaS features a layer of cloud technology architecture that that includes application infrastructure services also referred as middleware. Off late other cloud offerings like Software as a service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) have been in much demand through key players such as Amazon Web Services, Salesforce, IBM etc.

Compared to other cloud services such as SaaS and IaaS, Platform as a service is not very high on demand and has been on a slow growth pace relatively. But this scenario is about to change the evolution thats happening will affect the future of most users and vendors in enterprise software markets says Gartner reports Larry Dignan in zdnet.com.

"With large and growing vendor investment in PaaS, the market is on the cusp of several years of strategic growth, leading to innovation and likely breakthroughs in technology and business use of all of cloud computing," said Yefim Natis, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "Users and vendors of enterprise IT software solutions that are not yet engaged with PaaS must begin building expertise in PaaS or face tough challenges from competitors in the coming years."

PaaS is a category of cloud computing services that provide a computing platform and a solution stack as a service. In the classic layered model of cloud computing, the PaaS layer lies between the SaaS and the IaaS layers. PaaS provides the entire infrastructure required to run applications over the Internet. PaaS is based on a metering model so users only pay for what they use just like utility service of electricity or water. Users simply “tap in” and utilize how much ever they need without worrying much about the complexity behind the scenes.

According to Gartner PaaS is on its way to strategic growth that will lead to innovation breakthroughs and 2012 will mark the beginning of a multi-year growth trend in PaaS this eventually would result in all major software vendors having PaaS offerings by the end of 2013.