SaaS, IaaS, PaaS

There are four main cloud service models: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Disaster as a Service (DRaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS).

With each cloud service model, certain responsibilities are shifted to the cloud service provider allowing consumers of cloud services to focus more on their own business requirements and less on the underlying technologies.

IaaS abstracts the underlying infrastructure and data center capabilities so that consumers no longer have to rack and stack hardware, power and cool data centers, and procure hardware. Computer resources can be provisioned on demand as a utility, much like how we consume water and electricity today.

PaaS takes us one level higher in the stack and abstracts that operating system, database, application server, and programming language. Consumers using PaaS can focus on building software on top of the platform and no longer have to worry about installing, managing, and patching LAMP stacks or Windows operating systems. PaaS also takes care of scaling, failover, and many other technical design considerations so that developers can focus on business applications and less on the underlying IT "plumbing".

SaaS is the ultimate level of abstraction. With SaaS, the entire application or service is delivered over the web through a browser and or via an API. In this service model, the consumer only needs to focus on administering users to the system.

DRaaS is the replication and hosting of physical or virtual servers by a third-party to provide failover in the event of a natural or manmade catastrophe.

Please contact PDR to discuss how we can assit with your Cloud Service Model requirements!  800-488-3255