Hybrid Cloud For Dummies

Exploring Types of PaaS

All PaaS environments aren’t the same. Vendors approach PaaS in a number of ways. Some platforms are intrinsically tied to an environment, whereas others are linked to a specific operating system. Other PaaS platforms aren’t linked to one cloud environment or one operating system. So, it’s important to understand the different approaches, which we discuss in this section.

PaaS anchored to a SaaS environment

Some SaaS offerings have become core business services for their customers. Offerings such as Workday, Salesforce.com, and SugarCRM are replacing traditional on-premises systems of record. To expand their capabilities and their brand, some of these SaaS vendors have created ecosystems that allow independent software vendors (ISVs) to develop applications on top of the vendor’s software. PaaS is what enables the ISVs to develop programs in the vendor’s ecosystem.

In the following list, each PaaS is anchored to a SaaS environment:

Force.com: A PaaS designed by Salesforce.com. As discussed in Chapter 6, this PaaS allows customers to enhance their implementations by inviting ISVs into the Salesforce.com ecosystem. ISVs can sell their software directly to customers using their own channels or can rely on AppExchange, the Salesforce.com application marketplace. Of course Salesforce.com retains a portion of the sale as a commission for promoting the application ...