Expert debate: Platform as Service application

Platform as a service (PaaS) has been widely discussed by cloud experts, whether support or opposition. TechTarget a series of dialogues with experts on the expected growth of PAAs in the cloud market.

Techtarget:gartner advocates that platform-service applications will explode this year. How is your company PAAs prepared? What are the risks to PAAs?

Tom Nolle: I think "eruption" is a bit exaggerated, in the long run, the cloud will be written for its application driven by the application to write a platform. The market challenge is that we expect the cloud to replace it's current application, which means it is a platform that has not yet been written for applications. The platform we choose now to do what is right for the moment is risky because it doesn't necessarily fit into the future cloud framework.

PAAs is a long-term answer. I just want longer-term considerations, "what exactly does a cloud application actually look like?" There is no reason to think that future clouds will be constrained by the current programming model, but most of the PAAs platforms are now modeled. ”

What is the next step for Techtarget:paas? If portability and interoperability are the answer, which vendors are more likely?

Dan Sullivan: PAAs has a lot of benefits for developers, especially if you don't have a thorough stack of application skills. (Oracle DBA knows what I mean.) I guess the language and stacks of agnostic PAAs providers have a wide range of growth, like the Red Hat OpenShift. More professional vendors like Picloud will fill niches (python/Science and analytics applications) and may create professional user groups, but OpenShift is not yet popular.

The main risk for Roger Jennings:paas is that the vendor is locked into a specific OS or cloud, such as Azure under Windows. However, Microsoft is using virtual machines (VMS) and sophisticated Windows Azure IaaS to mitigate the problem.

Nolle: Personally, I think it's hard to achieve. The problem is that we almost only know the fur of the cloud, and there is nothing to prove the main advance. I think Microsoft has a clear vision, and I think any real-world cloud feature needs to focus on PAAs and software as a service (SaaS), but I think we're still struggling to find the real cloud, even for vendors. Small manufacturers, like joyent have some interesting angles, but to the market impact, only big it bosses can do.

TechTarget: What does a successful PAAs mean for the future enterprise infrastructure as a service (IaaS) implementation?

Nolle: Protein will, I think the better question should be "what does PAAs have to do with the future of the overall cloud?" "IaaS is just a way of server consolidation to host virtual servers; This "platform" of PAAs, if it provides a "service" that is really a new architecture, creates a combination of managed and service-oriented architecture (SOA) Grand Visions, becomes a game-changing party. But qualifying is the key because I don't think the market is in sync. We need to know what the cloud platform is and what it can do, and to know this we're going to ask what the cloud application actually looks like.

Jennings:paas offers enhanced menu-à-la-carte enhancements, such as Windows Azure Media, Mobile, Connect, Service bus, Workflow, Identity, Access control, Hadoop/mapreduce and Cloud Numerics features, which attribute IaaS to a low-margin commodity market, Amazon's Web Services (AWS) stand out and other vendors compete.

Sullivan:iaas and PAAs need different groups. If you are looking for a managed virtual machine to upgrade from the operating system and fully control the application stack, IaaS is a good choice. If you want to combine application stack services to meet your needs, PAAs is better for you than IaaS.

PAAs products, such as Cloudbees, may require Java developers who can take advantage of the development environment, messaging services, and identity management capabilities. How well a PAAs product fits into your existing needs and future development on this platform is really a problem. Risk-averse developers may prefer to stick to IaaS to keep their choices open.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)