The deployment of cloud computing is based on different service models. These categories or types of cloud computing services provide a way for service providers to organize and cater to the diverse needs or business and technological requirements of clients or end-users.
The Major Types of Cloud Computing Services
1. IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service
Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS is a service model in which a particular cloud computing service provider offers different IT infrastructures that are accessible via the internet or through the cloud. These include virtualized physical computing resources such as main processors and graphics processors, networking hardware and host servers, and storage hardware.
Providers of IaaS offer virtual access to hardware resources that are relevant to the IT requirements of end-users. The most examples of IaaS providers are Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and the Google Compute Engine of the Google Cloud Platform. These companies are the largest IaaS providers in the world and cater to enterprise clients.
2. PaaS: Platform as a Service
A Platform as a Service or PaaS is another one of the categories or types of cloud computing service. It focuses on providing a development environment for software application developers that is accessible via the cloud. The service providers host application development platforms and also offer software development tools using their own IT infrastructures.
Nvidia Corporation operates several PaaS businesses under its Omniverse Cloud and Nvidia AI Enterprise. These two are part of its platform strategy. Amazon Web Services and the Google Cloud Platform also have PaaS components in their service models. Other examples of PaaS include Oracle Cloud Platform, Heroku Container-Based PaaS, and IBM Cloud.
3. SaaS: Software as a Service
Software as a Service or SaaS is another service model within the cloud computing business model. It is centered on a software distribution model via the cloud. Providers of SaaS host software or applications using their IT infrastructure and make them available to end-users via the internet. SaaS is also sometimes referred to as on-demand software.
Google offers free web-based office productivity applications such as Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slide and. The Adobe Creative Cloud includes a set of applications for creative professionals that include Photoshop, Lightroom, and Acrobat. Salesforce and Oracle Sales Cloud offer cloud-based customer relationship management software.
Other Types of Cloud Computing Services
1. BaaS: Backend as a Service
A new type of cloud computing service and another category of service model is called Backend as a Service or BaaS. It centers on providing developers with solutions and options to link their web applications or mobile applications to cloud-based backend features or capabilities using application programming interfaces or APIs and software development kits or SDKs. This allows developers to build a backend to the frontend of their web or mobile applications.
There are some similarities between BaaS and IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. It remains distinctive because it focuses on addressing the cloud-computing needs of web and mobile app developers by giving them the means to connect their applications to cloud services. Most BaaS providers use the IT infrastructures of IaaS providers such as Amazon and Microsoft.
2. FaaS: Function as a Service
Another new service model for cloud computing and one of the emerging types of cloud computing service based on serverless computing is called Function as a Service or FaaS. It is specifically a service-hosted remote procedure call that enables developers to execute code in response to events minus the need to build or maintain an infrastructure.
It is important to note that serverless computing is a cloud computing execution model in which a provider manages the starting and stopping of virtual machines. It is intended to take server management and low-level infrastructure decision-making away from developers. Examples of FaaS are AWS Lambda, Azure Cloud Functions, and Google Cloud Functions.
