Contributed Article By Vasanthan Dasan, CTO and Executive Vice President of Engineering, The Armada Group

2011: PaaS Gains Traction

For companies that have a large SOA implementation or an ecosystem of users, Platform as a Service (PaaS) will gain significant traction in 2011 as the most popular way to leverage cloud computing.  Enterprises with large amounts of data and users will seek to consolidate using PaaS to increase their reach to customers and partners.  Enterprises are attracted to PaaS because of its complete abstraction, cost savings, faster time to market and better security.

Because the PaaS model abstracts infrastructure such as the OS, middleware and other cloud components, it offers an integrated environment that developers can leverage to build their applications without needing to know what is going on under the hood of the service. Developers with existing SOA interfaces can now consolidate using PaaS to reach customers anywhere and everywhere.

PaaS can be a win-win-win situation for all involved. For example, a company that conducts auctions or sells books on the Internet can enable shipping service partners such as UPS or FedEx by exposing PaaS interfaces. The shipping companies can develop application or workflows using PaaS interfaces/APIs to complete the customer transactions. The auction company can get paid for qualified referrals from the shipping company. The shipping company will more than recover the cost of developing applications on top of the PaaS interfaces by eliminating the need to secure qualified customers. Customer can seamlessly purchase, pay, and ship all in one workflow, resulting in a better user experience and increased satisfaction.

For organizations, such as state governments, each division can leverage the PaaS model to converge, for example, motor vehicle, health and human services onto a single platform, enabling cross-sharing of data using a single PaaS domain and consolidating multiple systems onto a single platform.

For the small and medium-sized business, the PaaS model enables easy and cost-effective addition of services without incurring the overhead of developing an application environment from the ground up or dealing with the complexities of cloud infrastructure.

PaaS will not render IaaS obsolete; however, it will put IaaS into the background and help developers succeed with standardized APIs and less need for operational support. PaaS will not be dominated by Google or Microsoft; rather many smaller players can offer unique value and provide component services that extend core PaaS platforms, which will combine to make PaaS the dominant cloud computing paradigm in 2011.

About the Author

Vasanthan Dasan is CTO and Executive Vice President of Engineering for The Armada Group, a premier Silicon Valley-based professional services firm that helps companies implement their next-generation technology strategy. Vasa is a recognized expert in cloud technology and virtualization software. Prior to joining Armada, Vasanthan was a Sun Distinguished Engineer and served as Chief Technologist for Sun's Cloud Computing practice, responsible for Sun Cloud business development with enterprises, telcos and internet service providers. He led Sun’s Cloud Computing unit in the architecture, deployment, operation and transformation of cloud computing practices with hosting services, remote services and virtualization software. Prior to that, Vasanthan was the Chief Technologist for Sun's $5.1 billion Services business unit, where he led the effort to automate Sun's service technologies over 10 years. He also helped lead Sun's software division, developing core Solaris technologies such as network file systems, kernel and cluster software. Vasanthan holds a BS in Engineering Physics, MS in Computer Science and an MA in Mathematics.