Red Hat was named a Leader in the Gartner 2024 Magic Quadrant for Container Management. This year, Red Hat was positioned furthest on the Completeness of Vision axis.
Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) is a form of cloud computing where an application software platform is provided by another party. Primarily for developers and programmers, a PaaS allows the user to develop, run, and manage their own apps without having to build and maintain the infrastructure or platform usually associated with the process.
PaaS platforms can run in the cloud or on on-premise infrastructure. For managed offerings, a PaaS provider hosts the hardware and software on its own infrastructure and delivers this platform to the user as an integrated solution, solution stack, or service through an internet connection.
For cloud-native development use cases, a Kubernetes-based PaaS can function as the platform on which container-based applications can run, scale, and be managed. For example, the cloud services editions of Red Hat® OpenShift® are managed PaaS offerings.
"As-a-service" generally means a service that is provided by a second party so that you can focus on what’s more important to you, like your code and relationships with your customers. Some other as-a-service options are Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
IaaS means a provider manages the infrastructure for you—the actual servers, network, virtualization, and storage—via a cloud. The user has access through an application programming interface (API) or dashboard, and essentially rents the infrastructure. The user manages things like the operating system, apps, and middleware while the provider takes care of any hardware, networking, hard drives, storage, and servers, and has the responsibility of taking care of outages, repairs, and hardware issues
SaaS is when a provider manages an app for you. The provider handles software updates, bug fixes, and other general software maintenance and you connect to it via a web browser or API. This also eliminates the need to have an app installed locally on each individual computer.
Benefits of using a PaaS environment include offloading the responsibilities of maintaining servers, keeping infrastructure software updated, and having to set up a custom platform upon which to build your app. A PaaS provider can host the platform and provide the environment for running applications.
Software teams can develop and deploy their apps without having to worry about maintenance and upkeep of the underlying infrastructure. This clears the way for further development and innovation with less distraction, while also reducing the amount of infrastructural setup and coding. PaaS also allows for scalability and easy migration because it exists in a cloud.
Organizations that choose PaaS environments for application development can enjoy a variety of benefits.
Enterprises that try to adapt to fast business changes have an endless combination of tools and strategies to consider—some of which only make a small impact. At the core, however, a platform ecosystem can be a central tool that supports transformation in meaningful ways.
A platform isn’t just about technology, but also people and processes. A platform ecosystem consists of a digital platform, a platform team that creates and manages
the platform as a product, and a platform community that helps the platform ecosystem thrive and fulfill a sustainable purpose.
The digital platform—which in many cases is a PaaS—becomes a focal point for transformation. A digital platform is a foundation that consists of self-service APIs, tools, services, knowledge, and support that are arranged as a compelling internal product.
Autonomous development and delivery teams can make use of the platform to deliver business functionality at a higher pace, with reduced coordination. And the enterprise’s digital platform can be used as an interface between different teams to improve communication and collaboration while reducing the need for lock-step coordination.
Used effectively, it can reduce the cognitive load on technical staff who are overburdened with delivery pressures and mounting technical debt, two of the many impediments to transformation. And it can encourage learning and new behaviors.
