Welcome!

SDN Journal Authors: Pat Romanski, Liz McMillan, Elizabeth White, Patrick Burke, Mark van Rijmenam

Related Topics: Cloud Expo, Java, SOA & WOA, Virtualization, Big Data Journal, SDN Journal

Cloud Expo: Blog Feed Post

There Is More to PaaS Than You Think

I will look at two examples: one enterprise and one from the consumer world

As described in the last week's post NIST defines three different cloud computing service models - IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. IaaS and SaaS are really easy to grasp but I see people struggling to understand the PaaS model. As a long-time application developer though I find the PaaS model the most compelling one for new applications. Here is why.

Screen Shot 2013-02-10 at 11.31.31 PM

I will look at two examples: one enterprise and one from the consumer world.

Let's start with the enterprise scenario. If you examine any enterprise application portfolio you will find out that almost every development team has implemented it's own code for handling common functionality like authentication, authorization, database access etc. There are also numerous cases when the same team developed the same functionality over and over in each new project. Even the componentization model doesn't help in this situation because either developers are often not aware of the existence of the components or there are too many options they can choose from and they cannot find the right fit for their scenario. The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) was the holly grail for this problem but many enterprises are still far from achieving this goal.

The next problem that you will see in enterprises is that each application has it's own way of accessing common services and resources like external systems, databases and storage. This results in configuration sprawl and the configuration management overhead.

Last but not least purchasing and provisioning the necessary infrastructure for every application is long and tedious process that significantly impacts time-to-market and adds unnecessary tensions between the IT department and the business groups.

Implementing PaaS in the enterprise can alleviate each one of those problems by implementing common functionality like authentication, authorization, database access, messaging etc., reducing the configuration sprawl by providing central service catalog and dynamic reconfiguration, and by decoupling the underlying infrastructure from the application. In addition PaaS leverages the underlying IaaS functionality to provide load balancing, high availability and auto-scaling on the application level.

All PaaS benefits from the enterprise scenario can be easily applied to a consumer application. Those are even more important with mobile, where the growth of users can become exponential. Delivering fluent, scalable and reliable functionality can be crucial to the success of every mobile application. Getting it fast to market though is one of the most important parts. By leveraging PaaS services, mobile application developers can build new experiences fast and easy, without the need to spend time on reimplementing basic functionality. Common features like location awareness, push notifications and even Instagram-like filters are offered by many public PaaS providers - mobile application developers just need to stitch those together in a new experience and publish it on the app stores. Adding the device-indepent nature of those services makes cross-platform rollouts several times faster than if those need to be implemented from scratch.

More than decade ago the application servers advanced the way new applications are developed by offering common framework and set of reusable components. Platforms-as-a-Service are the next step in the evolution of application development by adding inherent cloud computing characteristics like elasticity, on-demand self service and measuring.

Read the original blog entry...

More Stories By Toddy Mladenov

Toddy Mladenov has more than 15 years experience in software development and technology consulting at companies like Microsoft, SAP and 3Com. Currently he drives the sales engineering efforts of the private-PaaS startup Apprenda and consults enterprise customers on their cloud computing and software development strategies. Before Apprenda Toddy spent more than six years working on Microsft's cloud computing platform Windows Azure, Windows Client and MSN/Windows Live. During his career at Microsoft he managed different aspects of the software development process for Windows Azure and Windows Services. He also evangelized Microsoft cloud services among open source communities like PHP and Java. In the past he developed enterprise software for German's software giant SAP and several startups in Europe, and managed the technical sales for 3Com in the Balkan region.

With his broad industry experience, international background and end-user point of view Toddy has an unique approach towards technology. He believes that technology should be develop to improve people's lives and is eager to share his knowledge in topics like cloud computing, mobile and web development.

Cloud Expo Breaking News
Cloud computing is transforming the way businesses think about and leverage technology. As a result, the general understanding of cloud computing has come a long way in a short time. However, there are still many misconceptions about what cloud computing is and what it can do for businesses that adopt this game-changing computing model. In his General Session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Gene Eun, Senior Director, Oracle Cloud at Oracle, will discuss and dispel some of the common myth...
OpenStack Cells is one of the most anticipated features in Grizzly, the seventh release of the open source software that offers more block storage options and scalability. It has been running in production at Rackspace for more than a year. In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Wayne Walls, OpenStack Developer Advocate at Rackspace Hosting, will discuss nova cells and how it is changing the way you design your cloud applications and infrastructure. He will explain how OpenStack ...
"Since Cloud Expo is running the week of June 10, we thought it'd be a great idea to schedule our Meetup this week. That way, if you have colleagues, friends, or family in town that week for the Expo, you can invite them to join you!" With those words, the OpenStack New York Meetup Group's organizer's launched a landing page this week where anyone interested can register for the June 12 evening event.
“Cloud has everything to do with what has happened with Big Data,” explained Jason Deck, Director of Strategic Alliances at Logicworks, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “Big Data doesn’t exist in its easily accessible way without cloud. From reduced startup costs, to cheap storage, to fast processing, to adequate security, to the easy incorporation of third-party analytics tools, cloud made Big Data accessible to customers of all sizes, with all different bud...
“Open source has always provided a number of benefits, including easing adoption costs, propagating a better understanding of the technology, and allowing for faster evolution and commercialization of products and services based on it,” noted Terry Woloszyn, Founder & CEO, Leeward Security Ltd., in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “This is clearly evident with the OpenStack and CloudStack,” Woloszyn continued, “and others that have been quickly commercialized as...
SYS-CON Events announced today that OpenStack will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. OpenStack software controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, all managed by a dashboard that gives administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface. OpenStack powers some of the most widely-used SaaS app...
SYS-CON Events announced today that BUMI (Backup My Info!), the premium provider of managed online backup and recovery solutions for small to mid-sized businesses, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. Manhattan-based BUMI (Backup My Info!) is a premium managed service provider specializing in online data backup and recovery. Founded in 2002, the company's data backup and recovery serv...
SYS-CON Events announced today that nfina Technologies, a provider of highly reliable cloud server products, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. nfina Technologies develops, manufactures, and markets highly reliable cloud server products, designed to solve the most demanding data center requirements in mission-critical cloud applications. Nfina’s staff has decades of experience in co...
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Dave Eichorn, Global Data Center Practice Head at Zensar, will share a case study describing how a utility services company handled the migration of its Microsoft platform to the cloud. Challenged with the time-consuming task of opening operations out of temporary offices, this company struggled with the need to simultaneously access data that was accumulated from a vast amount of data-intensive jobs. Zensar migrated the company’s application ...
“Social, mobile, analytics and cloud can’t be looked at as distinct technology trends; they are facets of the same movement and an everyday reality for consumers and businesses alike,” said Craig Sowell, IBM VP of SmartCloud Marketing, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “This means that businesses need to start looking at trends as one: cloud is the delivery, analytics is the unique insight, social is a shareable service, and mobile is the ubiquitous access.” ...