u3Zgz

These materials are the copyright of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and any
dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.
22
Platform as a Service For Dummies, Special Edition
✓ Enable faster time to market and the ability to react to
changes and opportunities quickly without huge upfront
investments and heavyweight planning.
✓ Expand your organization’s investments as needed,
becoming more competitive.
Buying versus Building: The
Business Imperative
The PaaS option has two pieces: One is the platform, and
the other is service. The PaaS isn’t just delivering software
to your organization; it’s servicing it as well. As new updates
and new configurations are authorized, the PaaS-based cloud
service can control keeping the software updated based on
customer requirements.
One of the primary decisions you need to make is whether
you want to setup, configure, maintain, and administer
the PaaS yourself (either on a public or private IaaS) or
whether you want a provider to give you a fully-serviced
PaaS offering — leaving you as the consumer of that PaaS,
not as the maintainer.
If your organization decides to manage a PaaS based on your
own purchased software, you’re still required to manage the
details, including setup, configuration, monitoring, maintaining,
and patching the software.
When a company decides to use a service to manage these
tasks, the result is reduced friction between the development
and deployment organization. There will, of course, be situations
when it’s critical for the internal team to control and
manage complex software environments.