One day Minnie was at the airport when she saw Mickey there
Minnie – Hi Mickey
Mickey – Hey Minnie, How are you
Minnie – I am good, where are you going
Mickey – I am going to Disneyland Paris
Minnie – Wow, even I am heading there
Mickey – That will be great fun
Minnie – Yes, we still have an hour before the flight takes off
Mickey – Yeah let’s find a good place to sit and chat
Minnie – Sure, let’s go
Mickey – Minnie, I have been hearing a lot about Cloud Services these days like IaaS, Paas & SaaS. Do you know about this
Minnie – Yes, let me tell you a story
Mickey – Wow
Minnie – Okay tell me to get to the airport, what transport option did you take
Mickey – I took a taxi
Minnie – Great, what are the other options you could have opted for
Mickey – I could have driven here in my own car. Or I could have used public transport like a bus
Minnie – Okay, now we can compare this example with the software industry
Mickey – This is interesting
Minnie – When you have your own car, you are completely responsible for its maintenance, upgrade, repairs, etc.
Mickey – Yes
Minnie – So this is like the traditional way of having On-Premise infrastructure and software. All the software and hardware used to be purchased and kept on-premise. All the responsibility of maintenance, upgrades, troubleshooting was the owner’s responsibility
Mickey – Yes, I got that, so where did IaaS, PaaS, SaaS come into the picture
Minnie – We have not yet discussed that. This was the traditional way. Now we move the Cloud Services
Mickey – Okay
Minnie – Now one of the ways to commute is, you can take a leased car
Mickey – Yes, that is another option
Minnie – So there you can use the car and travel as you wish. But the car is not yours, Whenever you want to can replace or upgrade it. Also any repair, maintenance will be done by the leasing company, You just need to provide it fuel, air and keep it running
Mickey – Yes, and I like that
Minnie – So this is like IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service
Here the infrastructure is available of the cloud, like the hardware, servers, CPU, storage, etc and users can use the infrastructure as required by giving a fee or subscription or pay-as-you-go model. You just need to get the required infrastructure and then setup software/apps as you need to
Mickey – Good to know
Minnie – IaaS is a cloud service that provides basic computing infrastructure: servers, storage, and networking resources. A good option for IT administrators & developers
Mickey – Exactly like leased car
Minnie – Yes. A good example will be
Amazon AWS EC2
Microsoft Azure
Google Compute Engine
You get the machines, servers with the required configuration and then do your setup on that and run your software
Mickey – Great to know this
Minnie – Now, the Next option is taking a cab. When you take a taxi. You do not have to drive it yourself. You can inform the driver where you need to go and you can sit back and relax
Mickey – Yeah….
Minnie – So this is similar to Pass – Platform as a Service
PaaS is a bit like getting a cab. You get in and choose where you want to go to and how to get there. Keeping the car running and figuring out the details is up to the driver
There are cloud platforms that provide runtime environments for developing, testing, and managing applications. Here you do not have to worry about the underlying infrastructure as well. The service will give you the system ready with infrastructure and apps needed to run or test your software
It is a good option for Software Developers and Testers
Some PaaS providers are
Google App Engine
AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Heroku
CloudBees (Jenkins)
Mickey – Feeling better
Minnie – Now tell me what option of transport is left
Mickey – The public transport. Like taking a public bus
Minnie – Yes, and that is an example for SaaS – Software as a Service
Mickey – Pls explain
Minnie – Buses have assigned routes and you share the ride with fellow passengers
Mickey – I know that
Minnie – SaaS allows people to use cloud-based web applications. You currently would be using a lot of SaaS applications
Mickey – Like what
Minnie – Like
Gmail
Google docs
Salesforce, etc
Mickey – Yes, I did not know that these are SaaS apps
Minnie – So you see these apps are created and available on the cloud
Mickey – So why are they called Software as a Service
Minnie – You see, these are like a complete product or software available on the cloud.
They are already developed, Users cannot change the basic functionality, but can use them. It is perfect for End Users like you
Mickey – Like public transport, you cannot change the route or stops, etc. It is all fixed. You can get a ticket and take a ride
In the same way, you can create an account and use these services
Minnie – You are Smart, Mickey
Mickey – I know that 🙂
Minnie – So now you understand IaaS, Paas, SaaS
Mickey – Yes I do
Minnie – So tell me what more you want to know
Mickey – Why to use Cloud Services vs Traditional On-Premise Solution
Minnie – So you have seen in the traditional way of having the entire infrastructure, software, hardware, and everything on-premise may not be a good option in most cases
You have to take complete responsibility for everything like maintenance, repair, upgrades, issue handling, availability, etc
And if you need to use a new or latest ver, the old infrastructure becomes useless
Mickey – That’s true
Minnie – So with Cloud Services, you get lots of advantages like
You do not have to worry on maintenance, repairs, etc
Can use from anywhere
You can upgrade as you wish
Scalability
Availability
Ease
Cost
Think of developing or configuring an email service yourself rather than using Gmail
Mickey – Oh, don’t say that
Minnie – So now you know everything about Cloud Services – IaaS, Paas & SaaS
Mickey – Yes, I feel much better now
Minnie – We still have some time for the flight, Lets go to the restaurant. I am hungry
Mickey – Sure Mam, the food is on me
Minnie – Thanks Mickey
Mickey – You are my best friend
Minnie – I am always here for you 🙂
