In this blogpost, cloud service models are discussed. Cloud computing is a promising paradigm that providers consumers efficient and scalable services on pay as you go basis. Consumers or cloud tenants can rent or procure the cloud services to access the applications and for several application development tasks. All the services are managed by the providers without the intervention of the consumers or tenants. The cloud computing service models are discussed below.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
In this model, the cloud service users or consumers access the services or applications, such as email, content management like WordPress, Joomla etc. provided by the cloud provider through Web browser. A concept important to understand here is that the consumers do not have to do anything related to the management of the services. Instead, the services are completely administered by the cloud service providers.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
In Platform as a Service (PaaS) model, the consumers procure the required cloud services for certain development tasks. The cloud provider is responsible to provide storage, computing services, network, operating systems, databases, middleware etc. for hosting the consumers’ applications. The consumers or users are able to configure their applications; however, providing the infrastructure related services is the responsibility of cloud service provider. The common PaaS examples include Google App Engine, Force.com, Windows Azure etc.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
In Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model, the organizations or users procure the cloud services, such as storage or compute power from the cloud providers and run their software or operating system. Although the users have control over the operating systems, applications, and storage but the management and control of the cloud infrastructure is the responsibility of the cloud service providers. The IaaS examples are Google Compute Engine, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Service (AWS), CISCO Metapod etc.
To read about virtualization in cloud computing, click here.
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