A Guide to PaaS – Pricing and Characteristics

It was in 2005 that the concept of PaaS or Platform as a Service was first introduced in private data centers. Built by SysAdmins, it was launched officially in 2006 by Fotango, a London-based company that was also known as Zimki.

Before going to PaaS pricing, its characteristics, and the many facets that it brings to the table, let’s take a quick look at what Platform as a Service is all about.

PaaS is a cloud-based computing model that provides developers with a platform to develop, deploy, and operate multiple applications seamlessly. The goal of PaaS is to ensure quick development and this is the reason why it can do away with the complexities that are typically associated with configuring, deploying, and managing the required infrastructure.

Now, coming to PaaS pricing, it is by no means a simple task as several variables have to be taken into account for determining PaaS costs. These include the quantum of usage, hurdles such as determining the bandwidth, special licensing costs if applicable, backups, and operating locations. PaaS pricing is also based on the type of services provided by PaaS providers such as hosted or self-hosted and unlimited or hourly access. Based on specific organizational needs, PaaS pricing can vary from a few dollars to thousands of dollars a month.

The object of setting the precise PaaS pricing is to make sure that it fits the existing IT infrastructure at a low cost without compromising on scaling the size and cost of the platform as per actual usage. Thus, PaaS pricing when optimized is very viable cost-wise when compared to traditional data centers or cloud hosting providers and is a very attractive proposition for hosting costly traditional applications and current web applications. The affordable PaaS pricing is a huge incentive to operate on the cloud when the focus is exclusively on SLDC and developer experience.

Even though PaaS pricing is very reasonable the extent of services offered depends on individual PaaS providers. Given here are some of the services provided against reasonable PaaS pricing.

· A variety of tools that are necessary for software development, including a source code editor, a debugger, a compiler, and other essential tools, in short, everything that a developer might need to build an application.

· Included in PaaS pricing is middleware, the software located between user-facing applications and the machine's operating system that is used for running an application. Developers do not have to build it now.

· Developers work and run applications on an operating system that is operated and maintained by a PaaS provider and is a part of the PaaS pricing package.

· A key responsibility of PaaS providers is administering and maintaining databases as well as providing database management systems to developers.

With PaaS, developers can build applications faster than would be possible if they had to spend time worrying about building, configuring, and provisioning their platforms and backend infrastructure setups.