Week 7: Clear

The Three "Flavors" of Cloud-Based Computing

Three flavors to choose from!

Last week's blog had a food theme to it so I figured I would keep it going this week with the three flavors of cloud-based computing. The flavors to be tasted and explored are PaaS (Platform as a Service), DaaS (Data as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service). Each performs a different function that will be explained in this week's post. Which one you choose depends on your needs, as with pretty much any other software, hardware and technology we have learned about this semester.

PaaS
With a PaaS, the vendor provides the hardware and the operating system. This allows users to build their own apps while giving them the tools to do so. In this case, the user is very hands-on with creating the varying applications, but anything that develops runs on the service provider's computers.

DaaS

Just say "No" to software.
Photo cred

Data as a Service takes away the headache of only being able to save your data on your desktop. It is a conglomeration of data in a cloud. Basically, all of your data is stored in one place, not adjunct to a certain software. So users don't need to worry about changing format changes like going from Windows XP to Windows 7 as long as they have a DaaS that can run the Windows XP applications on their new Windows 7 computer.

SaaS
In an SaaS situation, the supplier provides everything. The hardware, the operating system and the data are all in one place. An SaaS operates as a third party vendor that supplies software online. No need to run it on your own computer! The leading SaaS provider is SalesForce.com. Employing a service like SalesForce can help companies drive down costs of computing software as well as office energy and space.