Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)

In this lecture, you’ll be introduced to Platform-as-a-Service, or PaaS, which is a cloud-based development and deployment environment. This service enables you to build, test, deploy, manage, and update applications with greater ease than traditional platforms. By utilizing PaaS, you’re able to purchase the necessary computing resources from a cloud service provider on a pay-as-you-go basis—here, the focus is on Microsoft Azure.

You’ll learn that PaaS includes the core components of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), such as servers, storage, and networking. Beyond these, PaaS adds middleware, development tools, Business Intelligence (BI) services, and database management systems. The lecture emphasizes the benefits of PaaS in simplifying and reducing the expenses associated with purchasing software licenses, managing underlying hardware, and handling middleware and development tools.

You’re also introduced to common PaaS scenarios such as development frameworks, which provide the backbone for building cloud-based applications, and analytics or business intelligence, which involve tools for data analysis and insights generation. PaaS’s features like scalability and high availability minimize the amount of code developers need to write.

Towards the end of the lecture, you’ll be reminded of the key points to remember, especially for exams: PaaS is a cloud development and deployment environment that includes IaaS components and additional tools and services. It supports the entire web application lifecycle, and when using PaaS, you manage your developed applications and services while the cloud service provider, such as Azure, handles the rest.