SaaS vs PaaS vs IaaS: Understand the difference

Rashmi Bhardwaj | Blog,BUZZ,Cloud & Virtualization,Services and Applications
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Introduction to Cloud Supporting Services

Organisations migrating applications and services to cloud are apprehensive about the many things, major ones being that software is moving from in-house physically secured environment to service provider cloud where many other customer services are running in tandem. Nevertheless, sharing more detail will make the cloud technologies known to customers and provide assurance on security and performance experience.  Below are the 3 cloud supporting services cloud providers provide to customer:

  • SaaS (Software as a Service)
  • PaaS (Platform as a Service)
  • IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)
saas-vs-paas-vs-iaas

Difference between SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS

These three services (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS) provide the different ways of usage of cloud for an organization. These models provide an alternative to the traditional on-site self managed IT solutions.

  • Infrastructure-as-a-Service offers a pay-as-you-go approach for storage, networking, and virtualization.
  • Platform-a-a-Service also provides services like hardware and software development tools available via web.
  • Software-as-a-Service provides the highest degree of vendor management providing complete software solutions.

Below diagram describes the difference between the three types of services on the basis of the level of vendor management provided by each model.

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saas vs paas vs iaas

Comparison Table: SaaS vs PaaS vs IaaS

The Cloud services differ in the following ways –


PARAMETER

SAASPAASIAAS
Full FormSoftware As a ServicePlatform as a ServiceInfrastructure as a Service
General UsersBusiness UsersDevelopers and DeployersSystem managers
Services AvailableEmail , Office automation , CRM , website testing , social media management Virtual desktopService and application test , development , integration and deploymentVirtual machines, operating systems, network, storage, backup services.
Business Justification To complete business tasksCreate and deploy service and applications for usersCreate platform for service and application test, development.
AbstractionComplete abstractionAbstraction of underlying hardware, software and application services.Abstraction of underlying hardware resources
ExamplesPaypal , Salesforce.comAzure Service platform, Force.comAmazon EC2 , GoGrid
Control Highest degree of control and flexibilityGood degree of control and flexibilityMinimal degree of control and flexibility
Operational CostMinimalLowerHighest
PortabilityNo portabilityLowerBest
Risk Of Vendor InterlockHighestMediumLowest
SecurityRequires transparency in service provider’s security policies to be able to determine the degree of sensitive corporate data.Additional security is required to make sure rogue applications don’t exploit vulnerabilities in software platform.Should consider Virtual and physical servers security policy conformity.
Download the comparison table: SaaS vs PaaS vs IaaS

Continue Reading:

Saas vs Paas: What’s the difference?

What is Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP)?

 

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