Programming for PaaS

Chapter 10. Resources

Throughout this book, various tools and technologies have been mentioned. In this final chapter is a list of those resources, by category. Since PaaS and its related services are in a constant state of evolution, no fixed list of resources can truly be complete. But the following links will, at the very least, provide a starting point for your research.

PaaS Providers

PaaS providers come in many flavors. It can be hard to distinguish which one is right for your needs sometimes, but some of the biggest differences between PaaS vendors can be understood when you determine the languages their offerings support, the portability of apps in the PaaS, what infrastructure the PaaS runs on, and whether you are responsible for running the PaaS or the vendor does that for you. The following terminology is important to keep in mind:

Portable

If you can easily move your application from one PaaS vendor to another, both are portable PaaS options. A PaaS that can run code largely unchanged from normal development processes is portable. For example, if the PaaS supports PHP and you can upload a WordPress PHP application without changing the fundamental code behind WordPress, this is a portable PaaS.

Non-portable

A PaaS that is bound to proprietary APIs that make it difficult to move to other PaaS vendors is non-portable.

Public cloud

Any PaaS that works on public clouds like AWS and Rackspace is a public cloud PaaS.

Private cloud

Any PaaS that works behind firewalls and on your own ...