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In this article, we’re going to discuss with you everything that you need to know to understand all three types of cloud computing services. So “What are the three Cloud Computing Service Delivery Models?”
Nowadays if you own or work for an organization or business it is very obvious that the infrastructure is on the cloud because more than 94 percent of enterprises use cloud services.
Increasing the value of the global cloud computing market to over 380 billion dollars, which is expected to grow at an annual growth rate of around 20 percent as of 2022.
Let’s dive in and understand the different service delivery models
Contents
What are the Three Cloud Computing Service Delivery Models?
When looking for a cloud service you’ll find various acronyms and buzzwords that may not make sense at first glance. The main terms you’ll come across which we will be covering in this article are IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.
The three very well-known cloud computing delivery models are IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), and SaaS (Software as a Service). These names are not random but depend on the type of services offered by a Cloud Service provider. An organization can preferably select one of these models as per their requirements.
Let’s break these terms down shall we let’s first start with the term On-premise?
On-Premise Servers
The term On-premise essentially means that an organization is going to be self-hosting their corporate assets inside their own company building or data center.
This means that the business has no reliance on any cloud services and is 100 percent fully maintained by the organization itself.
Some essential services like Email servers, file sharing, and employee directory would be maintained in-house within the company building.
This is what is considered an On-premise deployment and as you may expect, it can be a lot of work to maintain now to solidify the On-premise deployment.
From this concept, we can compare the model to a real-life example, let’s replace this scenario with pizza.
Let’s suppose that you’re looking to eat homemade pizza for dinner, well that sure does sound tasty, although homemade pizza requires you to buy all the ingredients and you must provide a dining table for yourself to eat on top of that.
You also have to cook and bake the pizza now that’s a lot of work for a simple pizza dinner.
This scenario represents the On-premise model as everything has to be deployed and maintained by the organization in their own respective building.
Now because you understand On-premise deployment, let’s further discuss our first cloud model known as IaaS which stands for Infrastructure as a Service.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Infrastructure as a service is a pay-as-you-go service where a third-party provider like AWS or Google cloud provides you with infrastructure services like storage, virtualization, and servers as you need them.
These services can be managed via the internet essentially Infrastructure as a Service gives users cloud-based alternatives to On-premise infrastructure so businesses can avoid investing in expensive on-site hardware resources like servers to use this service.
You don’t have to maintain or update your on-site data center because the cloud provider does it all for you under the hood but you access and control the cloud infrastructure via an API which is an Application Programming Interface or a dashboard more formally known as a management console.
In this console, you can control and maintain all the cloud services and assets which your organization owns.
Advantages of IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)
Some of the advantages of the Infrastructure as a Service model are
It offers high flexibility and scalability, this is because the cloud provider data centers are enormous and they’re rapidly expanding daily. The sky’s the limit when it comes to handling lots of load on the servers with the cloud provider.
Another advantage of Infrastructure as a Service is that it is accessible to multiple users. Since all services are controlled via one management console over the internet, you can invite team members from all over the globe to help manage the organization’s deployment.
Lastly, it’s also extremely cost-effective. This is because as we mentioned earlier, it is a pay-as-you-go service, there’s no need to pay for large servers and equipment when you don’t even need them you only pay for what you need. Therefore it saves the organization money in the long run.
Examples of IaaS
Some well-known infrastructure service providers are Amazon Web Services, Azure, Digital Ocean, and the Google cloud platform.
Similar to an On-premise deployment, we can also visualize a real-life scenario of Infrastructure as a Service so now you’ve come to a conclusion that the On-premise model from before is a bit too time-consuming.
Therefore, you have a new plan, and this time you’re going to be heading to the store to grab a take and bake pizza. The pizza is partially prepared for you, although you still have to provide the dinner table and also have to bake the pizza.
The only step we eliminated was the effort of the cooking and preparation as the ingredients of the pizza were already provided to us.
This represents the Infrastructure as a Service model as the underlying server’s storage compute and network from the cloud provider are already provided for the organization to use.
All the organization has to do is to deploy company services secure the deployment and bring the company data to the cloud.
Now that you understand how the Infrastructure as a Service model works let’s move on to Platform as a Service.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
The second type of cloud computing service is Platform as a Service (PaaS) which not only provides the hardware and the software hosted on its own infrastructure but also delivers a platform to the user as an integrated solution through an internet connection.
This service provides an environment for developers to quickly write and deploy code as well as building and maintain their apps without the headaches of software updates or hardware maintenance.
For example, we have Amazon which is primarily a Platform as a Service model. They provide a platform for buyers and sellers to conveniently communicate and exchange physical and digital merchandise over their payment and shipping infrastructure.
Amazon is a prime example of how the Platform as a Service model works. Platform as a Service is a popular choice for businesses who want to create unique applications without spending a fortune or taking on all the responsibility.
Also by using a Platform as a Service you can focus on your content or product rather than the software underneath it.
Advantages of PaaS (Platform as a Service)
Some of the Platform as a Service advantages are
Its accessibility by multiple users
It’s also heavily scalable so you can choose from various tiers of resources to suit the size of your organization.
It’s also quite easy to run without any extensive system administration knowledge.
Examples of PaaS
Some well-known Platforms as Service providers are the AWS, Elastic, Beanstalk, Heroku, and the Google app engine.
Before we continue let’s visualize our pizza scenario with the Platform as a Service model.
You’re now feeling too tired and don’t really feel like baking so therefore you will now call a pizza restaurant and place an order.
You will get a pizza and a drink delivered to your house. All you need to have now is a dining table since the pizza is already baked.
This represents the Platform as a Service model as all the underlying and primary components are provided such as servers, storage, compute, security, and databases, the only asset the company has to bring along now is their corporate data.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Let’s now discuss the final cloud model as Software as a Service (SaaS) which is also known as cloud application services is the most comprehensive form of cloud computing services and the one that you might be interacting with the most in your daily life delivering an entire application that is managed by a provider software updates, bug fixes, and general software maintenance are handled by the service provider and the user connects to the service or app via an API or dashboard.
With Software as a Service, you don’t need to install and run software applications on your computer instead you can access them via your web browser.
You will be familiar with forms of Software as a Service if you have an email account with a web-based service like Gmail or outlook, you can log into your account and get access to your email from any computer anywhere.
Advantages of SaaS (Software as a Service)
Some Software as a Service advantages are
Its availability over the internet
It’s also hosted on a remote server by a third-party provider
It’s highly scalable with different tiers for small, medium, and enterprise-level businesses.
It’s also highly inclusive which offers security compliance and maintenance as part of the cost.
Examples of SaaS
Dropbox, Salesforce, and Google apps are some famous Software as a Service example and now finally to represent the Software as a Service model let’s visualize our pizza scenario.
You can now go to the nearest pizza restaurant to your home and dine in. This is the simplest model because everything is already provided a dining table, a drink, and the pizza itself.
This represents the Software as a Service model which provides all the underlying hardware management software, security services, applications, and the company data ready to go.
Final Remarks on What are the three Cloud Computing Service Delivery Models
There are three cloud computing service models which exist with varying levels of complexity that are IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. The percentage of dependency on the organization decreases as you go down the list of models in this order, On-premise, Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service.
I hope that this article has helped you in understanding the differences in use cases between the different cloud computing models.
