What is Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)?
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is a model of cloud computing in which a ready-made computing environment is made available to developers to test and deploy applications at will.
Third-party PaaS providers typically offer a variety of pre-built platforms that developers can choose to build and run their app on. A platform encompasses everything needed to run an application, minus the code – i.e. the server, operating system, application runtimes, databases, networking, storage, and so on.
PaaS Benefits
PaaS simplifies life for developers because they do not have to manage any of the many backend processes necessary to support an application in production. These processes include software licensing, provisioning of resources for scalability, maintaining of hardware and physical infrastructure, network configuration and security, and other responsibilities which can be offloaded to a third party. Platform usage is typically charged on a pay-per-use or subscription basis depending on the level of resources required.