PaaS, SaaS or IaaS?
There are three basic cloud computing models that businesses often have to choose from: Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).
In the IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) approach, the provider offers the user resources on which to install and manage their applications themselves, including networking resources, storage, and processing capacity.
Software as a Service (SaaS) is a cloud computing model in which a software provider or vendor develops, deploys, and manages the entire software. This includes maintaining the cloud application software and middleware, providing automatic software updates, handling security, and generally making the software available to customers via the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis.
PaaS (Platform as a Service) is configured as the actual meeting point between the two approaches IaaS and SaaS, and therefore represents the best possible development and deployment environment for Cloud technology. PaaS allows the simplest IaaS-type infrastructure services to be enriched with software layers, and it reduces the standardization of SaaS application services, which are difficult to adapt to specific business needs.