Choosing a cloud model: SaaS versus PaaS

Over the past few years, things have changed in the collaboration space. Historically we were all On-premises and behind the corporate firewall, now however we either live in the cloud only world or the hybrid space. The companies that create the technology have had to adapt to make sure their services and components are viable options when looking at what to use.

This shift has come based on the idea of either “Software as a Service” or “Platform as a Service”. These two phrases now determine what we should do. Understanding them is important to being able to choose the right solution for your organization. 

Let us understand what Cloud Computing means. In simple terms, cloud is a complex infrastructure technology comprising of servers, databases and computers. These are connected together and can be shared by multiple users based on access permissions. Typically, cloud services have following characteristics:

Now with that understanding, let’s look at what SaaS and PaaS really are. 

Software as a Service

Software as a service (SaaS) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is sometimes referred to as "on-demand software", and was formerly referred to as "software plus services" by Microsoft. SaaS is typically accessed by users using a thin client via a web browser. SaaS has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including office and messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), Management Information Systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, content management (CM), and service desk management. SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all leading enterprise software companies. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_service

Advantages of SaaS

Gain access to sophisticated applications. To provide SaaS apps to users, you don’t need to purchase, install, update, or maintain any hardware, middleware, or software. SaaS makes even sophisticated enterprise applications, such as ERP and CRM, affordable for organizations that lack the resources to buy, deploy, and manage the required infrastructure and software themselves:

Platform as a Service

Platform as a service (PaaS) or application platform as a service (aPaaS) is a category of cloud computing services that provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing and launching an app. PaaS can be delivered in two ways: as a public cloud service from a provider, where the consumer controls software deployment with minimal configuration options, and the provider provides the networks, servers, storage, operating system (OS), 'middleware' (e.g. Java runtime, .NET runtime, integration, etc.), database and other services to host the consumer's application; or as a private service (software or appliance) inside the firewall, or as software deployed on a public infrastructure as a service. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_as_a_service

Advantages of PaaS

By delivering infrastructure as a service, PaaS offers the same advantages as IaaS. But its additional features—middleware, development tools, and other business tools—give you more advantages:

Still confused? I hope so, knowing and choosing the right one can be complicated as you really need to know the differences between the two, so that you can make that informed decision. 

Compared

When you put these two services side by side, there are many common things, but they are really different.

As you can see there is an overlap, but in reality, they are different. The PaaS piece is all about the under-pinning infrastructure, the servers, networking and even the physical location. SaaS is really the application you wish to provide or use which utilizes the core infrastructure underneath.

So, the big question, how does the factor into your cloud strategy for SharePoint? Do you use PaaS or SaaS?

That really comes down to what you want out of the system. Moving infrastructure to the cloud using either model will be an advantage either way. The main different is really down to one is providing you an application or set of services that you use, the other is providing you a data center where you define and create the server infrastructure you need, based on a solid proven infrastructure that you don’t have to worry about. If you are an organization that needs to own the infrastructure still, control at a granular level the operating system upwards then PaaS is the options you need to have. Not only providing this, but also the ability to scale as needed easily, will be the win you need. If you don’t want to worry about servers, patching of any infrastructure, then SaaS is for you. The application is just provided to you, you use what you need and never have to patch a server again!! Surely that is a win? However, that comes as a cost, as you do in some respects lose an element of control and you have to live within the components of the service and rely on someone else to resolve technical issue.

All in all, choosing the right option is important. Working with clients over the past few years, has seen me work on both, some have moved to the cloud (all in), others have stayed with a virtual physical infrastructure and moved to the cloud. Both options work, both have advantages and disadvantages, so choose wisely what you need.