1

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS): The Next Hype of

Cloud Computing
Robail Yasrab
School of Computer Science and Information Technology,
University of Science and Technology China (USTC),
Hefei China.
been beneficial to PaaS as compared to the
Abstract popularity gained by IaaS and SaaS cloud services.
Gap between IaaS and SaaS has been filled by
Cloud Computing is expected to become the PaaS and it allows application owners to still own
driving force of information technology to and implement their own applications without
revolutionize the future. Presently number of depending on basic IT infrastructure [2]. For
companies is trying to adopt this new technology instance, a software developer is not required to
either as service providers, enablers or vendors. In worry about installing, monitoring, configuring,
this way the cloud market is estimated be likely to load balancing, patching or some other issues
emerge at a remarkable rate. Under the whole cloud related to runtime environment and middleware
umbrella, PaaS seems to have a relatively small when on PaaS platform [3]. According to
market share. However, it is expected to offer specifications of the given cloud platform, a
much more as it is compared with its counterparts developer is just required to deploy the application
SaaS and IaaS. This paper is aimed to assess and online.
analyze the future of PaaS technology. Year 2015
named as “the year of PaaS”. It means that PaaS PaaS infrastructure offers a number of IT and
technology has established strong roots and ready business based benefits, e.g. it offers more business
to hit the market with better technology services. agility to an enterprise than a traditional software
This research will discuss future PaaS market development approach. The development of an
trends, growth and business competitors. In the application “Born on PaaS” offers better TTV
current dynamic era, several companies in the (Time to Value) factor because such applications
market are offering PaaS services. This research can be developed so quickly and can be deployed
will also outline some of the top service providers so faster [4]. The application “Born on PaaS”
(proprietary & open source) to discuss their current minimize the time for moving parts of
technology status and present a futuristic look into infrastructure. This means it consumes less time
their services and business strategies. Analysis of and cost resources. It also offers a highly
the present and future PaaS technology standardized scalable delivery and self-managing
infrastructure will also be a major discussion in this platform. This is a massive benefit for the
paper. enterprise application deployment and development.

Keywords PaaS; IaaS, SaaS, Containers, Virtual The emergence of PaaS cloud market has given
Machines, Hybrid PaaS direction to a lot of major proprietary players like,
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google,
[Link], Heroku and Microsoft’s Azure to
1 Introduction
present theirselves on cloud market. Every IT
company is struggling for the top position in the
In the recent past, most of the IT oriented people
PaaS cloud market. Choosing a vendor for PaaS
were thinking that the cloud computing paradigm is
services is not easy because companies like Cloud
only a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and
Foundry and OpenShift of Red Hat are also trying
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). However, after
to establish solid ground in the open source PaaS
the release of Heroku, Windows Azure, AWS
market. The proprietary PaaS vendors are also
(Amazon web Services), and Google App-Engine
performing excellent in the cloud market which
people have become more and more well known to
again has created a great platform rivalry.
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) [1]. Currently, a
number of companies across the world have moved Currently, many PaaS vendors are in market and
their technology development practices and offering sophisticated cloud services, though still
processes to the cloud through PaaS to transform PaaS lagging is behind as compared to SaaS and
the traditional development approaches and to get IaaS. Most of the organizations worldwide are
the full benefit from state of the art flexible hesitant to adopt private PaaS solutions, due to
services. However, these developments have not numerous security and privacy concerns. Currently,
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many of security and privacy issues are neutralized. which leads to flexibility. However, it can add
However, is it enough to enhance PaaS’ worldwide more cost and complexity [6].
extensive adoption? There are a lot of issues and
More and more businesses worldwide have
factors who are presently hindering the widespread
recognized the significance of PaaS technology
adoption of PaaS. This research will try to find the
solutions. Though, businesses are confused
answer of the above question and will address the
between adoptions of PaaS technology. PaaS
certain aspects of PaaS, e.g. emerging trends,
technology is available in different flavors, like
market forecasts, market competition and future
private PaaS (hosted in-house) or public PaaS
services. The first section of this research paper is
cloud. Private PaaS demand extra set-up cost
outlined with the current status of PaaS market.
whereas public PaaS cloud system has security,
Second section is based on PaaS marker futuristic
privacy and other issues [6]. Transition between
analysis. Third section represents the analysis and
private and public PaaS is not so easy. So the
discussion of key market players of PaaS and the
solution is Hybrid PaaS cloud. It is a blend of
last section is about conclusion and work sighted.
private and public PaaS cloud. Hybrid PaaS offers
more businesses and performance flexibility.
2 PAAS’ Present
Currently, the cloud market is filled with the
PaaS technology was first introduced by number of PaaS service providers. Each company
[Link], Heroku and Amazon Web Services is trying to capture the maximum market share with
(AWS) back in year 2007. After this Google maximum cloud services. So, the number of
launched App Engine in 2008 which was a free companies has started offering PaaS services
trial version. Overnight, these initiatives beside the established IaaS or SaaS market. Most of
transformed the online cloud computing space into the companies have already converged on this
a complete virtual industry. At that time PaaS was space. Like, Amazon's Elastic Beanstalk or the
not introduced as an extension of SaaS. It was Relational Database Service moves up from the
offered as a complete solution for enterprise IaaS layer, while some companies like Salesforce's
customized Research and Development (R&D) [Link] which moves down from the SaaS layer.
middleware platform. Now PaaS technology has But on the other hand, some companies took new
evolved and not only offers application software initiative, like Google with App-Engine and
but also covers both application and database Microsoft with Windows Azure. However, there
services. PaaS cloud technology has changed the are also some pure players who are offering pure
development, testing and deployment processes of PaaS services like EngineYard [7].
service-oriented architecture (SOA). It has also Furthermore, in near future we are expecting more
provided ease in the application development and more new companies investing and initiating
process of whole SOA architecture [5]. PaaS services due to its potential high market
Presently, Platform-as-a-Service platforms are acceptance rate. Another reason is the role of open
implemented in different styles. PaaS Service standards as well as the open source of PaaS
providers acquire different approaches to offer services. In contrary to IaaS where the Amazon has
better services. One of the most popular categories developed a bit of a de-facto standard, PaaS is
is “SaaS Environment Anchored PaaS”. Such PaaS probably turned out to be more and more de-jure
cloud vendors have SaaS as their core business (open standards). IBM recently declared PaaS
services. To grow their business capabilities and capability named “BlueMix” that is a $1 billion
brand, the PaaS vendors develop an ecosystem that project. While based on open source standards
permits independent software developers to offer RedHat's “OpenShift” PaaS platform is also turning
applications on top of the cloud platform. out to be a great active future contributor to PaaS
[7].
The next category is “Operating Environment
Anchored” PaaS, where PaaS is tied to an operation Bal et al. [8] stated that PaaS has transformed the
environment that makes it easier to operate and ways of dealing new technology challenges like
perform specific actions within that environment. web based computing, global software
Such PaaS vendors offer the entire foundations, e.g. development, open-source development and
the OS, networking, storage and so on. Moreover, outsourcing of the major business process. This
it offers the tools for application development. smooth application development process offered a
great deal of ease for the people who involved with
The third category is “Open PaaS” that is aimed to development of WOA (web-oriented architecture)
encourage an open process and environment which and SOA. Because now they are able to decide
is not tied to a particular cloud computing where to host services and processes either outside
implementation. Open PaaS providers permit or inside of the firewall system.
developers to bring their own platform to the cloud
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PaaS offered extremely low cost, efficient and different companies are showing their concern
large-scale application development on the Internet. about cloud privacy, security and management
Though PaaS not only promote the worth of speed concerns; the PaaS vendors are hastening to defeat
and cost of development, but also enhance the web those concerns and fears [15]. This study leads to
based resource utilization[8]. It is believed that following questions. 1) Can private PaaS cloud
soon PaaS will emerge as a new era of rapid (more secure PaaS) option help to boost adoption
development cloud platform. in the market? 2) Or other options, like IaaS cloud
vendors capitalizing the cloud market and
PaaS cloud services offer a great deal of freedom
delivering PaaS platform services from the same
and productivity to developers. Because they don’t
platform? This section is focused on answering
need to worry about defining scalable requirements
these questions and analysis of the future market
also they do not need to use XML to outline the
size of PaaS among other cloud services (IaaS and
specification of the system deployment. All these
SaaS platforms) and regional markets.
facilities are offered by the PaaS providers with
responsibility to manage all these services. InfoWorld is worldwide well accepted technology
According to Grover & Kheterpal [10], PaaS offers news agency and part of the International Data
services for developers like application design, Group. This news agency is one of the best choices
development, testing and deployment. In addition for business management, technology decision
to secondary services needed for development; like makers and leaders seeking for expert analysis of
web-service integration, team-collaboration, enterprise technology [16]. According to a report
security, database integration, storage, scalability, on the PaaS technology future, it is predicted that
state management, persistence, application PaaS cloud industry will rise rapidly due to great
instrumentation, versioning, and developer interest of global software technology developers
community facilitation. These all services offered in faster, easier and flexible application
by present PaaS technology platforms. Other non- development with nominal IT budget [15].
engineering services are also offered for
International Data Corporation (IDC) is another
development management; like project monitoring,
major international leading organization for
project workflow management, tools for service
technology advisory services, technology market
management, discovery and reservation handling.
intelligence and IT analyses has predicted the
Besides all these merits, the major issue with PaaS future of PaaS on the basis of PaaS 2011–2013
cloud technology is that developers are being revenue. IDC forecasted 2014–2018 international
“locked-in” to a certain platform. For instance, a competitive public cloud PaaS market. It is stated
company has taken services of Google App Engine that a number of prospects for monetizing public
for their applications and wants to move to PaaS technology is continue to rise through
Amazon’ PaaS cloud; in this case the company has growing IT solutions, approximately from all
to completely re-write their applications[9]. These global businesses. The main reason is the growth of
days most of the new PaaS vendors offering “lock- data from mobile and social communication along-
in free” services. In PaaS 1.0 cloud “Lock-in” was side events being gathered from the “Internet-of-
introduced as a feature. However, due to the new Things”. All of these initiatives are now tightly
era of higher global collaboration, out-sourcing, connected to the cloud and turning to be a massive
open source development and interoperability; force that demanding public PaaS and improving
there is no excuse for offering vendor lock-in public PaaS potentials [17].
feature. So, PaaS 2.0 cloud is open by design,
According to Kanaracus [18] worldwide market
offering more freedom and high sharing [5, 10].
of PaaS technology is going to set a big leap. It is
Cloud security always been one of the hottest expected that, the US $3.8 billion market in 2012,
debates since its emergence. Nowadays, cloud jump to $14 billion market till 2017. This big leap
vendors normally offer improved protection is expected because worldwide businesses want to
methods because it's in the interest of vendors to reduce infrastructure costs as well as enhance the
offer high level of security for their cloud speed of application development and deployment
clients[11, 12]. PaaS normally offers a relatively [18] & IDC. The total PaaS annual growth rate
refined suite of access controls. Though clients are according to present situations will be roughly 30%,
not having any risk but vendors still own the risk. according to InfoWorld.

3 Future Market Analyses As IDC predicted 32% growth in the public PaaS
cloud market since 2013 and claimed a thrilling
IaaS and SaaS market investment is on the rise but future for global public PaaS. It is also stated that
PaaS technology sector tends to lag behind. As the Public PaaS market will grow from 13% to 16%
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from overall cloud market revenue till 2018 [17]. It

demonstrates that it will continue to grow to
become an influential tool to facilitate clients and
to meet the growing market and business needs.
According to another report by
[Link] “Global PaaS Market 2010-
2014" the worldwide PaaS market is predicted to
be raised up-to 26% annually through 2014 [19,20].

At Gartner “Application Architecture,

Development & Integration Summit, 2011”
outlined some of the noticeable figures regarding
the PaaS technology future. According to report, it
was stated that till 2015, enterprise adoption of
PaaS will rise from 3% to 43%. [21-23].
Fig. 2 PaaS Market forecast 2013-2018
From overall geographic PaaS market revenue
Fig.3 shows the annual growth rate of PaaS
point-of-view, highest revenue generated from the
technology from year 2012 to 2018. This annual
USA is 65.2% in 2012. It is also predicted that this
growth rate is directed related to above stated
figure is not going to have big change up-to 2017.
Visiongain’s forecast annual increase in revenue. It
The major reason behind the stable revenue is that
can be clearly seen that year 2014 and 2015 are the
the several initial PaaS vendors have their roots in
peak development years for PaaS technology.
USA and offering such “revenue biasness".
However, PaaS market revenue expansion in the
Asia-Pacific including Japan is “continue to expand”
by 14.1% market share in 2012 and it is expected to
expand to 19.0% up-to 2017. While the Middle
East, Europe and Africa collectively share 20.7%
PaaS annual revenue in 2012 but with a slight drop
in revenue up-to 18.7% by 2017 as shown in Fig.1
[18].

Fig. 3 PaaS Annual Growth Rate (%) 2012-2018

“Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) is
defined as the year-over-year growth rate of an
investment over the given time period”. It is an
investment and business related term for the
geometric progression ratio that offers a constant
rate of return over the specific time period [25].
Fig. 1 Geographic PaaS market (2012-2017) According to Gartner, Public Cloud Services
Forecast 3Q13, September 2013, enterprises will
According to Visiongain forecast for the PaaS spend $921 billion on public cloud services till
submarket, revenue is valued at $1.9 Billion in the 2017 with overall 17% CAGR (2012-2017) as
year 2013 and it is expected to increase $3.7 shown in the Fig.4. This forecast of Gartner offers
Billion till year 2018 [24]. Fig.2 demonstrates the public cloud future’s preview. Also according to
Visiongain’s forecast for PaaS till 2018. Visiongain forecast, the PaaS cloud is going to
attain a 14.3% CAGR for the period 2013-2018
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[24]. If we assess these figures closely, it is obvious According to 451-Research analysis report on the
that all these forecasts are approximately offering PaaS, future market will attain 38% CAGR through
same numbers. 2016 by producing 24% of overall cloud computing
services revenue. It is also assessed that 71% of
PaaS revenue will be produced through vendors
over $75M in sales [24]. Another 451-Research
report on “The future of cloud services” forecasted
that PaaS is a fastest growing industry of the future.
Hosted Infrastructure Services (current growth rate
69%) and SaaS (current growth rate 71%) are two
popular cloud services. Having the future
forecasted growth rate of 14% for both IaaS and
SaaS by 2016. With 37% current growth rate, PaaS
is projected to have highest annual growth rate that
is 26 upto 2016 as shown in Fig.6. This
demonstrators that PaaS is turning out to be one of
top revenue generator in cloud family [27].

Fig. 4 Enterprises investment on Public Cloud till

2017
“North Bridge Venture Partners” in collaboration
with “GigaOM Research” and 57 collaborating
organizations performed a future analysis survey of
cloud services that offers a glimpse into the cloud
computing technology adoption trends, inhibitors,
and driving forces for long-term growth. The
results of this survey outlined cloud segments and
general growth analysis which are forecasted from
451-Research Market Monitor Report [26]. The
Fig.5 given below outlines the CAGRs and
worldwide addressable market capacity by IaaS,
PaaS and SaaS. It shows the comparison of 2012
results and 2016 market forecasts. This graph
Fig.6 PaaS, IaaS & SaaS future growth analysis
clearly depicts that PaaS is ultimately having the
(Current-2016)
highest growth rate and CAGR in the worldwide
market.
4. PaaS: Developers, Operations and
Service Providers Future
Eventually, the objective of any PaaS technology is
to ease application developers to develop and
implement applications. Also the other objective of
PaaS is to make sure that the primary services
interact mutually and with core hardware
infrastructure in a right way. Such aspects should
be assessed before adopting PaaS cloud whether
the PaaS cloud service provider is a public PaaS
vendor (like AWS or Azure) or an independent
entity (like dotCloud, Heroku or AppFog) [28].
Fig. 5 SaaS, IaaS & PaaS growth rate and CAGR
According to Gartner, the year 2015 is declared as
comparison (2012-2016)
the year of PaaS because this technology is
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influencing developers, operations and providers in appearing in the marketplace. PaaS vendors like
an effective way. So, it is completely true that PaaS Google App Engine, [Link], Cloud Foundry,
represents the future of development and IT. Let’s Heroku, Engine Yard and Microsoft Azure have
have a look how PaaS will transform and facilitate initiated some early adoption aPaaS technology.
the functioning and performance of the PaaS aPaaS has established the foundation on which
developers, operations and providers in the future. numerous well known SaaS applications have
already been built and much popular in these days.
From developer’s viewpoint, PaaS offers freedom
to code low level plumbing as part of the overall iPaaS is the next most popular type of PaaS
application development process. According to technology that is evolving as the next generation
Keller & Rexford [29], developers will make use of integration platform. This is designed for
PaaS packages for code plumbing. Instead of integrating cloud applications with one another.
wasting time in writing codes to monitor resource iPaaS also allows the application integration with
load and to start and stop virtual machines to on-premises and legacy applications. It is stated
manage the application loads, developers of PaaS explicitly, an iPaaS is cloud integration PaaS which
can focus on valued part of the application and allows connectivity to SaaS as well as cloud
engineering business functionality. Currently services. Also it offers a safe method of
developers are able to control pre-configured accessibility for on-premises applications [30].
application settings which facilitates the quick
In past, PaaS services were offered in a dis-
development of systems through complex
integrated fashion. However, now PaaS turn out to
deployment of topologies. All these services offer a
be a complete package of all customized services.
win-win situation for developers for improving
Now technology providers are offering all these
their productivity.
services in a single package. It is also expected that
From operation’s viewpoint, PaaS bridges the in near future, this technology paradigm will
challenge of shadow IT. Now application incorporate more and more specialized tools and
developers directly obtaining cloud resources. technologies under the umbrella of PaaS. Fig.7
State-of-the-art PaaS technology solutions contain shows the evolution of PaaS services and
the development and operational tools like logging, integration of these services to a single package.
monitoring and version controls thus, it streamline
the operational environments. These all services
and support offers a great deal of capability to
enhance the developer performance and reduction
in application development and deployment time.
The PaaS market is virtually divided into a
number of technology platforms and services. Each
service and platform offers different levels of
flexibility, productivity and quality. These PaaS
services also differ in capability and performance.
PaaS is now evolving to new generation of services.
One of most popular category is the “Application
platform as a Service (aPaaS)”. aPaaS offers a
variety of capabilities like development tools, Fig. 7 PaaS Roadmap
container service programming models and much
more. In the present technological advanced era,
these elements of aPaaS have gradually begun
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In addition to adoption of PaaS services, there is willing to absorb losses. Prices also depend on the
also need to know about most popular PaaS uniqueness and quality of services offered by any
services and reason to adopt these services in future. provider. Quality-of-services (QoS) is turning out
In a report by Gartner, “Market Trends: Platform as to be a key aspect of cloud acceptance. Now cloud
a Service, Worldwide, 2012-2016, 2H12” providers are struggling to offer more and more
published on Oct 5, 2012, it was stated that efficient services to grab maximum market share.
Application Platform-as-a-service (aPaaS) is a most Quality of service involves number of aspects like
popular PaaS service. According to the above efficient load balancing, completion time
mentioned Gartner forecast report, “Application improvement, response time optimization,
Platform Services (aPaaS)” was the largest segment reduction in bandwidth wastage, make-span
of the PaaS market producing 35% of total PaaS improvement and accountability of the overall
earnings in 2011 as shown in the Fig.8. Fig-8 system [33].Quality aware PaaS providers are able
shows the proportion of different PaaS services and to offer value based services related to application
future growth (201 to 2016) of these services in functionality. Those eventually linked to business
PaaS paradigm [31]. It also shows that in future productivity outcomes. This becomes a reason that
aPaaS will be the preferred technology for businesses are willing to pay a premium. This also
companies. offers a very bright future for PaaS service provider

Fig. 8 PaaS Market 2011 [Source: Gartner, Market Trends: Platform as a Service, Worldwide, 2012-
2016, 2H12]

“Application Platform as a Service (aPaaS) is best where they can provide higher-margin services and
defined by the Gartner. It says that aPaaS is a cloud differentiation to create a better competitive edge
service that offers development & deployment and earn more revenue [34].
architecture for application services” [32]. It means
According to Peng, et al. (2009) rather supporting
that aPaaS is offering the Platform as a Service
developers, operations and providers, PaaS is now
along with SaaS and IaaS. It offers end users with
breaking away from its legacy and performing as a
operating systems, hardware, network or storage
primary tool for cost and margin management for
capacity and other services to run existing
technology development firms [35]. In recent times,
applications or develop new ones. The most
PaaS has offered the cloud to initiate technology
popular aPaaS service is Amazon AWS for PaaS. It
evolution which is known as "virtual cloud
is highly popular because it offers more flexibility
operating system". Altogether, every time a
for developers, improve productivity and enhance
technology vendor offers a fresh cloud service. It
the quality of development. The Fig.8 shows the
has effectively developed a virtual cloud OS for
past and future trend of PaaS services. It also
PaaS. Nowadays, the majority of PaaS services
shows that aPaaS will be constantly occupying a
reflect a traditional OS. However, in near future,
major PaaS market share in the future. Here highly
different PaaS technology providers’ infrastructure
evolving trend of aPaaS directs to the major
will differ from each other and from current
technology provider of PaaS in the coming future.
operating system to develop the real cloud-based
In the PaaS market, prices are set and managed operating system.
by service providers who are most competent or
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In connection to adoption PaaS technology by products by the launch of “OpenShift”, a PaaS

developers and development organization; a survey, technology infrastructure. These all new
“Develop Your Own Application (DYOA)” by advancements in technology facilitate cloud
“Business-Wire” carried out in June 2014. The migration as well as encourage developers and
basic objective of this survey was to assess the businesses to rely and move to PaaS to harvest its
basic PaaS technology aspects and trends in current great capabilities [39]. Further details about these
software industry. This research study outlined that PaaS service providers available in coming sections.
PaaS technologies are well satisfying the rising
demand of rapid application development and 5 PaaS Core Architectural
changing business needs. This survey took the Transformations
views of 700 IT industry decision makers from all
over the world (UK, US, Germany, France, 5.1 PaaS Generations
Australia, Benelux, Singapore and Brazil). It is Since the PaaS technology market breakthrough, it
assessed that there is a huge demand of PaaS has seen many transformations. Now, the evolution
technologies from organizations those are of PaaS cloud is moving towards container based
searching for faster, flexible and easy application application development or interoperable PaaS.
development & deployment cycles. Because the The below part outlines some major
PaaS technology solution allows a rapid application transformations in PaaS technology and presented
development for custom-business apps to be in the different generation pattern [13].
speedily developed & deployed through ‘point’ and
‘click-type’ PaaS tools available in web browsers. The first generation was based on classical fixed
proprietary cloud platforms. Major PaaS providers
According to survey 85% of respondents stated of such technology at that time were Heroku or
that their organization demands to reduce cost and Azure.
time (resource consumption) to develop & deploy The second generation was developed around
applications. In this scenario, 70% of the open source solutions. In this generation open
respondents said that they are either already source PaaS providers like OpenShift and Cloud
adopted PaaS technologies or planned to use them Foundry allowed clients to run their own PaaS (in
in near future. 54% of existing users of PaaS the cloud or on-premise) which is already
reported that PaaS technology helped them to developed around containers based technology.
reduce the application development time. While 51% Now, Openshift transferred from its own container
stated that a great deal of costs reduction. 47% model to the Docker based container model. The
respondents said that PaaS had offered more same transformation performed by Cloud Foundry
innovation and offered better and enhanced way for through its internal Diego solution.
technology development [36-38].
The present and third generation comprises
platforms like Deis, Dawn, Octohost, Flynn and
Amazon Web Services are basic market leader in
Tsuru which are built on Docker based container
IaaS. However, it also stepped-in the PaaS market
models. These platforms build around Docker from
and has been enhancing its PaaS services. Amazon
scratch and are deployable on public IaaS clouds or
Web Services has already started potential
on own servers.
enhancements with the most recent launch of its
Redshift data warehousing cloud service. The 5.2 Containers Revolution
Amazon also introduced a Java VM-hosting PaaS
The cloud computing architecture depends on
based platform that optimized for the cloud
virtualization techniques to accomplish elasticity
application and services. Heroku and [Link]
and productivity for large-scale resource sharing.
are also well established early pure PaaS vendors.
Up-to last few years, Virtual Machines (VMs) are
Another leading market service provider in PaaS is
the most popular way to achieve virtualization in
Microsoft who has incorporated Microsoft Azure
the cloud. However, the idea of containers
application programming interfaces (APIs) feature
supported OS-level virtualization is changing the
to coming Windows Server. It will facilitate third
cloud industry significantly. The below section
parties to host Azure compatible clouds application.
discussed the two basic architectures for the PaaS
Red-Hat recently initiated PaaS technology
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cloud. This study has also assessed that which Currently every major cloud vendor and
architecture is more promising to transform the enterprise infrastructure company has jumped to
PaaS industry in the coming future. the Docker trend including IBM Corp., Google Inc.,
Microsoft, RedHat Inc., VMware Inc., and
Virtual machines (VMs) are considered as
Rackspace. RedHat is presently, the top outside-
backbone infrastructure for operating system layer
open-source contributor for container development.
virtualization. On the other hand, the new idea of
All the latest distribution of RedHat Enterprise
“Container” is same as VMs to offer virtualization
Linux offers the Docker containers [16].
(lightweight virtualization); however, with less
resources and time consumption. Containers have Docker containers are playing an important role in
been proposed as a solution for numerous cloud transforming the PaaS industry. Now, Docker and
interoperable application packaging. related lightweight containers intended to
revolutionize the role of operating system and the
Containers and virtual machines are both
VMs. For instance, the VM has revolutionized the
virtualization tools, though solve different
physical bare-metal server infrastructure. Docker
problems. Basically containers are PaaS focused
containers are getting popular in PaaS industry
tool for delivering application with more and more
because they offer less overhead and better
interoperability and portability. Containers utilize
interoperability as compared to traditional VMs.
fundamental operating systems (OS) virtualization
principles. In contrast, virtual machines are more
concerned about hardware management and
allocation with the focus on hardware virtualization
[13]. Fig-9 shows an architecture level difference
among the VMs and containers.
Currently, Containers are being used as an
alternative to operating system level virtualization
to execute multiple isolated systems on a single
host. Containers technology within the single OS is
much more effective and with this effectiveness,
they have strengthened the future of the cloud
infrastructure, more specifically, in PaaS industry
through replacing virtual machine architecture [14].
Fig. 9 VMs v/s Containers
A container is a light weight OS runtime
environment inside the host system. It executes 6 PaaS Platform Rivalry
instructions native to the core CPU, eradicating the
requirements for instruction level emulation or just Adopting PaaS technology is a very big challenge.
in time compilation. The key advantage of When analyzing and selecting a PaaS technology
containers over virtual machines is that they offer provider, every business or individual have to
consider the server side technologies, programming
resource savings without overhead of virtualization
languages and data storage options. Technical
as well as offers isolation [15]. Containers have support for application integration and developer
long existence as extensions to Linux distributions tools is also a significant factor. Finally, the most
while there are no native commercial containers for important factor that needs to be considered is
Windows yet. ‘cost’. It is important to assess the cost of running
applications in a PaaS platform and need to know
Docker open source containers emerged over the the pricing model of a chosen PaaS vendor [17].
past few years and developed as de-facto standard
This section of paper will discuss the PaaS
intended for applications extension form one
Platforms from different point of views. Initially, it
platform to another. It is also executing as micro- will present top vendors of PaaS technology with
services in Open-Shift and Cloud Foundry PaaS their technologies, potential features, possible
environment. Docker containers have currently issues and business strategies through SWOT
became available with key Linux distribution as (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats)
well as supported in major cloud services. analysis. These top vendors will also be discussed
regarding their future market scope. How they plan
 10

to capture a maximum market in the near future? distinguished Engineer at the Amazon Corp.,
The next part will outline some of the up-coming outlined some of outstanding AWS innovation
PaaS technology providers with great services, big statistics. According to him, there are one million
investments and innovative tools. The basic active customers, presently top 14 cloud service
objective of this study is to discuss these upcoming providers collectively have 1/5th capacity of AWS
technology providers and to assess the possible (Gartner statistics -2013), 449 latest services and
future market stake among already established key features released in 2014, continually adding
business giants. The third part of the discussion is new server capacity for Amazon’s global
“Open Source PaaS”. This section will outline infrastructure to achieve the $7B annual revenue,
possible well performing open source PaaS estimated 132% data transfer growth and have
technology provider and their future. Another latest achieved 02Tbps data-center network capacity
PaaS paradigm is “Mobile PaaS (mPaaS)” which is [21].
in its early stage of development. The mPaaS
AWS is trying to enhance its ‘Availability Zone’
section will highlight this technology paradigm and
capability in the coming future for better PaaS
associated businesses.
services provision. AWS is also trying to establish
6.1 PaaS Market Giants the Availability Zones all over the world with more
and more proximity to clients to minimize
6.1.1 Amazon AWS PaaS
messaging latency. This will enhance the state
Amazon is presently considered as the biggest updates synchronously between availability zones,
cloud service provider. Amazon Web Services which significantly improves availability in
emerged primarily as an IaaS, however, in last few contrast to typical way, where data-centers are
years company also stepped-in in the PaaS through pretty much far apart [21].
its AWS platform. AWS allows to utilize platform
According to Bermudez, Traverso, Mellia, &
services and capabilities without maintaining or
Munafo [49] in coming future, AWS PaaS is also
creating own application servers. AWS offers
trying to enhance services and attempting to avoid
support to a large number of languages like Python,
public cloud lock-in situations. In an interview with
Java, Perl, Ruby and other languages. MySQL,
Gigaom Research 2014 in San Francisco: Werner
Oracle and SQL Server can be deployed and
Vogels, Amazon Web Services CTO stated that
managed. The Amazon’ RDS web services allows
“we are well aware regarding companies concerns
to eliminate database administration issues. AWS
for adoption of public cloud services while we are
offer other services like Amazon Elastic Beanstalk
trying to get customers into the cloud through
for auto-scaling, application health monitoring and
mutual cooperation with major competitors [22]. It
automatic load balancing, which are so much
leads to signs that AWS is trying to avoid cloud
supportive and helpful for application developers.
lock-in situation. In the coming future, it is
Strengths: As AWS is mainly an IaaS technology expected that businesses may not hesitate to adopt
provider, so virtually, there is no limit to the public cloud and might not face cloud lock-in
databases, languages or server side technologies. situations.
We can have capabilities to install and run any of
6.1.2 Google App Engine
them [18].
Google App Engine is one of the major market
Weaknesses: As compared to other PaaS options,
stakeholders in PaaS services. It is designed for
AWS platform requires more management
developers who program in languages like Python,
overhead which leads to more time consumption
Java, Go and PHP for developing distributed web
tasks.
applications. Google App Engine has Java based
Opportunities: AWS's Free Usage Tier allows new environment that supports other languages using
users to have free of cost 30GB data space, 750 Java Runtime Environment (JRE). It also has a
hours and 15GB bandwidth [19]. software development kit (SDK) for each of four
main supported languages and Eclipse plug-in.
Threats: Cloud “Locked-in” situation. Also it is According to Ciurana [51], GAE PaaS supports
very expensive for basic offers. runtime environment and managing infrastructure
Pricing Strategy: A Monthly calculator is available that is ensured to scale up and down, however, if
to calculate the charges for application services, the applications conform to the standards of Google
storage and data charges. However, the overall App Engine. It also offer schema-less data-store
structure is pretty complex [20] that deals with the complex management of data
which is available for several machine instances.
Future Prospects: Amazon AWS PaaS is
progressing continuously to huge scale for getting a Strengths: Sandbox model allows Google App
better competitive edge in the future. In this Engine for isolating the processes from each other.
scenario, James Hamilton, Vice President and In this way, a risk of process disruption has been
 11

reduced (e.g. a rogue process on a physical server, capability to all customers to send up to 10,000
disrupt other process’s operations on that server). topics and 10,000 messages/ second [26].
Weaknesses: Google App Engine only offers a 6.1.3 Microsoft Azure
limited number of programming languages support
Microsoft Widows Azure was first released on Feb
(Java, Python, Go and PHP).
1, 2010. In 2014, it was named Microsoft Azure.
Opportunities: For new users it provides free first According to Gartner, Microsoft Azure is one of
28 instance hours, cloud storage of 5GB is free, 1 the major cloud platforms and ranked as a leader in
GB outgoing and incoming traffic is also free [23]. both IaaS and PaaS cloud industry [27]. Now lines
blurring between PaaS and IaaS technology of
Threats: GAE has problem of cloud locked -in.
Microsoft. Azure Cloud facilitates languages such
Pricing: Google App Engine is using the pricing as [Link], .NET, Python, PHP, Ruby and Java.
model of pay per use. It charges $0.05/ hour fee for Developers are able to make use of Visual Studio
reserved instance or $0.08/hour on demand for developing and deploying applications. Also
instance. Cloud Storage service is also available at developers have the choice of selecting among
$0.026/GB/month. The Data-store cost $0.06/100k SQL Database, Tables and Blobs when persistent
read/ write operations. While small operations are storage is required. Microsoft Azure’ born
free. Outgoing Network Traffic (Bandwidth) costs applications is administered by its dashboard or by
$0.12/GB [23]. using a command line interface [28].
Future Prospects: In this IT based age information Strengths: Microsoft Azure is offering PaaS and
is power. In case of “Big data” Google has no IaaS in one package. Azure facilitates a quick scale
competitors. In machine learning and data mining up or down according to the changing needs of
field, Google is recognized as one of the top business [29].
companies in the world. There are huge chances in
Weaknesses: One of the key aspects that seem to be
future that Google Cloud Platform and its services
bottleneck for Azure is its minimalist
will mostly be dedicated for the Big Data industry
administration control portal.
(BigQuery).
Opportunities: MS Azure offers a free 30-day trial
Google Compute Engine could be the biggest
version for new users. This version has a limit of
competitor of AWS during 2015 and in coming
up to $200 [30, 31].
years. Google has successfully managed and
enhanced its cloud infrastructure since last 10 years. Threats: Higher self-hosting and integration costs.
Since 2008, Google App Engine has improved up
Pricing: Azure pricing is based on the size of
to a great extent. Google is taking full advantage of
instances running. Price ranges from $0.02/hr. to
its global and comprehensive network as compared
$0.64/hr. Also outbound data transfers start
to AWS [24]. According to Severance [54], Google
from the $0.087 per GB. SQL database services
has worldwide comprehensive network of data-
start from the $4.99/month. Virtual Machine starts
centers. So, Google enjoys a better competitive
edge of ‘Availability Zone’ capabilities. from $13/month [30].

Google has the future competitive advantage. Future Prospects: Microsoft Azure turned out to be
Unlike the Amazon, Google has more huge data a major market competitor with Google and AWS
center infrastructure over the globe and has faster in recent years. To get its distinguishing market
market access when it comes to launch PaaS position, Microsoft Azure introduced a number of
services to new regions around the world. Such innovative and enhanced services, however, the
aspects will have an immense impact in terms of future lies to technology providers who offer
price and market shares in upcoming future [25]. innovation. In this scenario, Microsoft Azure is
trying to break-down the boundaries among PaaS
Google App Engine recently introduced a new cloud services and that’s why company delivers a
feature for its PaaS platform to bridge the gap of consistent hybrid PaaS cloud services. In future,
communication in global development Microsoft Azure is aimed to offer services for
infrastructure. Google released a beta version of enhancing application mobility, easier development
Google Cloud Pub/Sub; a way to link and and avoiding public cloud lock-ins [32].
communicate among services and applications.
This will offer Google a huge competitive At the GigaOM conference in San Francisco June
advantage in the coming future over the other PaaS 18–19, 2014, Scott Guthrie, the Executive Vice
providers to link services and applications whether President of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise
they are hosted through Google Cloud Platform or group, stated that “Microsoft achieved hyper-scale
on-premises infrastructure. This app will offer cloud service providers’ status along with Google
and Amazon. In coming future, Microsoft will
 12

differentiate itself to customers through offering a database, business intelligence reports and
huge variety of services (from high-level products security/identity etc. Business services also manage
to raw access to server hardware)” [33]. upgrades and automatically back-up of user data
[17, 39].
In case of getting better future market competitive
edge, in July 2014, Microsoft Azure released Azure Weaknesses: [Link] PaaS services charge
Machine Learning (ML) capability. According to very high recurring subscription costs as compared
Joseph Sirosh, Microsoft Corporate Vice President to other market competitors.
of Machine Learning, stated that a comprehensive
Opportunities: The initial pricing package of
set of services and capabilities of machine learning
[Link] PaaS offers powerful applications
added at Microsoft Azure. In future, these machine
with access to ten custom objects/users [40].
learning tools will offer the ability to forecast
business trends by reducing forecast times for Threats: Data center’s reliability is questionable
customers and partners from months to hours [34, due to a number of significant outages.
35].
Pricing: [Link] PaaS pricing is based on
Sirosh added that customary approaches for data monthly basis. The starting cost is $25/user/month.
analysis help to predict the future. But the new Pricing is billed on annual basis [40].
machine learning capability will change the future.
Future Prospects: Salesforce1 initiated PaaS
Microsoft Azure expected to attain a huge market
services through [Link] platform. For gaining a
in the coming future through innovation of services,
as Azure ML will help business to detect patterns, better competitive edge in the market, the company
predict disease outbreaks, forecast demand and took a lot of initiatives. For example, till the July
2014 company acquired 31 different companies
prevent crime etc. [35].
(acquired Heroku PaaS Platform; in Dec 2010,
6.1.4 [Link] & Heroku acquired ExactTarget a Marketing Cloud company
in June 2013, now known as Salesforce Marketing
[Link] is a key PaaS service provider.
Cloud, etc.). This aspect shows that [Link]
Currently it is offering PaaS services through
is really determined for its future and getting top
[Link] and [Link]. [Link] has
position in cloud and PaaS technology. [Link]
established standard for developing new age
& Heroku collectively supporting [Link]
multitenant cloud applications. [Link] offered
mission for a bright future and bring together the
PaaS infrastructure to developers to develop and
power of both into the one family of PaaS. These
deploy the application on Salesforce's servers.
both companies offer complete and comprehensive
[Link] PaaS platform offers support for
set of PaaS platform and tools [41-43].
programming languages and frameworks like Java,
Apex, Ruby on Rails, [Link], Python, all JVM A novel technology framework is going to release
languages and more. Such extensive support offer in spring 2015 for developing better user interfaces
developers to develop all kinds of rich and and lightning components. Using the open source
effective applications that please customers [36]. Aura Framework, Lightning components will
support for Apex as a server side language and as a
Heroku: Heroku is one of the initial cloud
platforms, founded in 2007. [Link] has replacement for Aura's Java dependency [44].
acquired company in 2010; though it is still The Lightning technology framework will be a
working as a subsidiary cloud service. It supports collection of tools and technologies that will
languages and frameworks like Python, Ruby, significantly upgrade Salesforce1 Platform.
Scala, Java, [Link] and Cloture. It is based on the Lightning platform includes components and
abstract computing infrastructure known as dynos, extensions that permit to develop reusable
which run processes in an isolated environment, components, standalone apps and customize the
based on virtualized Unix-style containers [37].
Salesforce1 Mobile App. It will also be used as a
Heroku perform very efficiently with apps that
support Twelve-Factor-App methodology. Heroku new user interface tool that permits to develop apps
is now becoming more and more mature PaaS lightning fast through components offered by
platform with numerous better capabilities (support platform developers and Salesforce. In future, this
third party apps e.g. Add-ons). In future, it will tool will support for visualizing, building and
become a major market shareholder of PaaS [37, automating business processes. It will also work as
38]. Schema Builder for viewing fields, developing
objects and relationships. This tool is expected to
Here Heroku and Salesforce will be considered as enhance the developer’s capabilities to a greater
one entity regarding SWOT analysis and future extent and reduces the complexity factor [45].
prospects.
6.2 PaaS Providers: on the Horizon
Strengths: [Link] PaaS offers a pre-
integrated capability that already has a search 6.2.1 IBM’s BlueMix
 13

Bluemix is based on Cloud Foundry architecture There are lots of tools including Watson, DashDB,
that enables us to rapidly develop, deploy and Cloudant, DataWorks, and other high quality tools
manage our cloud applications. Because IBM are also available at IBM’ Bluemix stack. It is
Bluemix is based on Cloud Foundry open source expected that developers will get an enormous
architecture, so, we are able to tap into a growing power and capability to build next generation PaaS
ecosystem of runtime services and frameworks. born apps [52].
IBM’s BlueMix PaaS platform was launched as an
6.2.2 AppFog
open beta back in Feb 2014 and it has proved very
successful. BlueMix is presently accessible through AppFog is another leading PaaS provider. It offers
IBM’s cloud hosting platform ‘SoftLayer’. support for a multi-language and multi-framework
BlueMix presents developers a simple way to PaaS. It offers a great capability for multi-cloud
develop cloud applications for businesses. BlueMix deployments together with private clouds. AppFog
PaaS supports a number of languages like [Link], offers support for languages and platforms like
Java, PHP, Go, Ruby and Scala. Also support Ruby, Java, Node, Python, PHP, Scala and Erlang.
frameworks like Sinatra and Ruby on Rails. IBM’s As well as it offers PostgreSQL, MySQL,
BlueMix is a fast growing PaaS platform and RabbitMQ and Redis along with 3rd party add-on
having a great deal of future for cloud computing services. AppFog is designed around the open
and also for business competitive edge [46-48]. source Cloud Foundry architecture and facilitates
SVN, Mercurial and Git for code management [53].
Future Prospects: “IBM is leading to a new age of
innovation through partnering with technology The biggest advantage of AppFog is that it can
developers in an open environment to speed-up the run applications on multiple clouds. People who
evolving world of hybrid cloud computing,” said prefer the VMware based architecture will
by Robert LeBlanc, IBM’s senior vice president of definitely prefer PaaS. For initial users, AppFog
software and cloud Solutions. According to offers free version with unlimited apps within
Pattathe, Hoang, Yuen, & Li [79] IBM’s BlueMix 100MB persistent storage (supporting PostgreSQL
PaaS platform is progressing speedily into a new and MySQL), 2GB of RAM and up-to 8 service
era of cloud developing. In a very small time, instances. The Overall pricing system is based on
company attained a very considerable place in the pay for only what it is used. A big issue with
cloud market. For becoming more vibrant for AppFog platform is that it does not have a
future PaaS industry, IBM is taking a number of persistent file system. So if another object storage
steps involving the acquisition of new companies system is needed; it will be integrated but at an
and alliance with world big technology firms. In additional cost [53, 54].
March 2014, BlueMix and IBM acquired DBaaS
6.3 PaaS Open Source Padrone
firm Cloudant. Now Cloudant turned out to be a
core component of the BlueMix PaaS services [49, 6.3.1 Cloud Foundry
50].
Cloud Foundry emerged in year 2008 as an open
Another big step toward IBM’s BlueMix future is source PaaS cloud computing platform. It is a Java
the recent Apple and IBM partnership. “This based PaaS platform. It was originally developed
partnership will offer capability to IBM for selling by VMware. Later it was acquired by Pivotal
industry specific applications which are pre-loaded Software. Cloud Foundry support languages like
on iOS supported devices. This will probably fuel Scala, Ruby, Python, PHP, [Link], Java and
further demand and growth of mobile apps. “This platforms like Play 2.x, Lift, Rails, Sinatra, Spring
technology exchange alliance with Apple business Framework 3.x, 4.x. In February 2014, VMware
will offer a boost in bringing innovations to cloud declared the establishment of the Cloud Foundry
clients worldwide. It will also enhance IBM’s Foundation, with Platinum sponsorship of EMC,
management for software services and cloud” said Pivotal, Rackspace, IBM and VMware as Platinum
by Ginni Rometty. (IBM’s chairman, Cupertino, sponsors. Cloud Foundry Foundation is having 33
California, 15 Jul 2014) [49, 51]. members and 42 contributing development
IBM’s BlueMix recently incorporated Watson businesses.
Analytics (a natural-language based cognitive Cloud Foundry obtains source code from Ruby
service) to its stack of cloud services. This tool will users and developers. It is an open source PaaS
help the PaaS apps developers to build powerful platform that permits deployment of apps to
analytical solutions. These solutions will help Amazon Web Services (AWS), OpenStack, vCloud
businesses to analyze, aggregate and visualize huge Air, vSphere and vCloud Director. The key hosted
amount of data, and information to uncover quality services offered by Cloud Foundry are MongoDB,
and unique insights. MySQL and RabbitMQ. Cloud Foundry’ PaaS
developers get a great deal of support and ease by
having tools like the Eclipse Plugin, command line
 14

tools, application scale tools and a build integration offers a new private integration PaaS Service
tools. These days Cloud Foundry is heavily (iPaaS). Such technology development based
competing against the Heroku, AppScale and initiatives shows that Red Hat, Inc. is determined to
OpenShift [55]. Recently on Dec 9, 2014 Linux obtain an outstanding position in the open source
Foundation Collaborative Project took Cloud cloud market. Integration of iPaaS will offer
Foundry as a collaborative project. So, in future, services to future developers for application
company expected to be a major competitor for the messaging and integration. Such messaging and
other open source PaaS companies [56, 57]. integration tools (JBoss A-MQ for xPaaS & JBoss
Fuse for xPaaS) will support for easy and speedy
6.3.2 Engine-Yard
integration that will lead to increase application
Engine-Yard is one of the early cloud service time-to-market [65].
providers. Now it is getting pace. One of the main
6.3.4 Stackato
reasons is its strategic alliance with Microsoft in
2013. Through this alliance, developers will be able Stackato is a stable, secure and commercially
to use its open source PaaS capabilities running on supported PaaS platform which is built through
Microsoft cloud infrastructure. Engine-Yard is various top open source packages like Docker and
offering support to languages like PHP, Ruby on Cloud Foundry [66]. ActiveState's Stackato is a
Rails and [Link]. Engine-Yard is offering a great new technology based platform that offers support
deal of capability for operations management, to develop and deploy new era web apps. Stackato
snapshot management, backup, cluster handling, offers flexibility and ease, supported by direct
load balancing and administering the database [58]. virtual machine (VM) access on IaaS. It also offers
highly automated configuration that support
Engine-Yard is trying to be more and more
developers to connect PaaS with IaaS [67].
vibrant in the open source cloud market. For this,
Stackato services include a web management
the company has offered lots of innovative services
console, a customizable app store, activity stream
and launched a number of collaborative projects
as well as self-service. There are also some other
with the world’s well-known technology
features for PaaS developers including auto-
companies. As mentioned above, the strategic
configuration, end-to-end development, dynamic
alliance of Microsoft and Engine Yard will deliver
load balancing, elastic scalability, a centralized
commercial grade applications in the future [59].
cluster administration, application auto-scaling,
Another major development for Engine-Yard is its placement and availability zones, as well as
alliance with Oracle Crop. Oracle took Engine persistent file-system sharing [68, 69].
Yard technology services for development of
Stackato released new version Stackato 3.0 on
Oracle Cloud PaaS. Engine Yard PaaS automates
November 2013. This new version holds the
the deployment, configuration and on-going
support of Docker. After Docker alliance with
maintenance of Oracle PaaS to facilitate developers
Stackato application development, business gained
[60, 61].
incredible momentum. Docker permits efficient
6.3.3 Red-Hat’s OpenShift and powerful portability and container management
across Stackato clusters. With minor updates and
Red-Hat’s OpenShift is PaaS based platform that is
bug fixations, a latest 3.0.8 version (released in
based on open source applications. OpenShift
May 2014) is available now. Newer versions
presents a huge variety support to databases,
expected to bring more power and support for
languages and components. OpenShift PaaS
developers and will offer Stackato a distinguishing
technology platform is vastly customizable and place in PaaS market [70, 71].
available in three forms. At first, OpenShift
Enterprise is a private PaaS that support and 6.3.5 Cloudify
manage client data center. Secondly OpenShift
Cloudify (by GigaSpaces) is an emerging PaaS
Online is a PaaS cloud based hosting service.
technology platform that acts as an orchestrator for
Finally, OpenShift Origin is an open source
applications on the cloud. Developers can deploy,
application hosting site [62]. OpenShift offers a lot
manage and scale the complete application stack
of new features for better cloud development like it
through tools offered by Cloudify [72]. The
automates system management jobs. For example,
Cloudify manager deals the processes through
configuration and scaling, virtual server
monitoring different states of the application as
provisioning and supports GIT repositories
well as deploys the program agents. Cloudify’s
intended for code management [63, 64].
open architecture permits clients to develop and
In November 2014, Red Hat, Inc. released utilize custom workflows, data types and plugins to
OpenShift Enterprise 2.2; a new technology based develop a model that works only for developer [73,
platform for strengthened its early PaaS OpenShift 74].
services. This new technology service release
 15

Cloudify is constantly working and improving its data and identity, standardize backend integration
services and tools for better future. The Cloudify as well as scale up or down through turn-on
3.1 is the latest version which was published on infrastructure [80].
Dec 17, 2014. It offers novel features and tools for
PaaS developers for better, easy and fast 7 PaaA’ Prospects
development [75].
6.4 Mobile PaaS Year 2015, named as “the year of PaaS”. Even
PaaS technology was around since the evolution of
In last few years, some great PaaS services have cloud computing. Also the PaaS field saw its initial
emerged to support and facilitate the developers. industry validation in 2010, when Salesforce
These PaaS cloud services have taken away many acquired Heroku. Huge transformations happened
time-consuming and hard phases of application since that time. However, PaaS came to the front
development. However, for mobile developers, now because the concept of PaaS or its awareness,
there is still something to be desired. Here comes people recognize it today; they were not recognized
the Mobile Platform-as-a-Service (mPaaS). mPaaS 4-5 years ago. Another reason can be that since the
offers powerful tools and services to rapidly establishment of cloud technology, people were so
develop, integrate, deploy and manage data driven much concerned about security issues. However,
mobile applications for mobilizing workflows, most of the issues are being resolved and now
processes, reports, tasks, databases and custom people starting believing cloud as a reliable
applications [76, 77]. technology platform. Another aspect is that PaaS
mPaaS is an emerging arena of PaaS technology. was bottlenecked behind the debate of IaaS cloud
Many new players are stepping-in to get maximum computing because platform applications require an
market share. This section is about the top mPaaS IaaS infrastructure. But today most of IaaS issues
provider in the market. and infrastructures aspects are being settled.
Therefore, PaaS is in the position to move on.
6.4.1 mFicient
Another aspect of current PaaS technology hype is
The mficient is an mPaaS platform aimed to speed that presently, the demand for applications is
up and improve the deployment of business skyrocketing. This presents a great pressure on IT
workflows and processes on mobile devices. This firms to develop and deploy applications quickly.
platform offers device and app management, rapid In such situation, IT firms are seeking new
development tools, single sign-on integration with platforms, tools and procedures to support them to
Active Directory (LDAP), easy backend data move from slow-moving manual application
integration and without complications of software development practices to automated procedures. In
or hardware installation etc. [78]. this situation, PaaS is the best candidate for fast,
6.4.2 Kumulos low cost and easy development and deployment.

Kumulos is an original Mobile Backend as a Another factor that accelerate the PaaS acceptance
service (MBaaS) platform developed for mobile is the open source licensing. PaaS vendors like
application developers. Mobile Backend as a Cloud Foundry, revolutionize the PaaS application
service (MBaaS) is a cloud model which offers distribution, which offers an open source-based
capability to mobile application developers with a product that can be deployed virtually at any
method to link their apps to backend APIs and infrastructure. This makes PaaS a much accepted
cloud storage. Kumulos allow mobile app and preferred choice for IT enterprise. Now IT
developers to focus on developing a high class and firms are feeling free to pursue the high
appealing app experience. This technology productivity and flexibility that PaaS offers.
platform offers easy integration of sophisticated PaaS is being accepted as a reliable development
features and existing data sources into app. platform. It is also predicted that PaaS will achieve
Kumulos work on iOS & OSX, Windows Phone, huge milestones in near future. Though, businesses
Android, Blackberry and HTML 5 [79]. still confused between private, public or hybrid
6.4.3 Kinvey PaaS. As already stated, that choice between public,
private and hybrid involves a lot of factors
Another market leader in mPaaS is Kinvey, which including cost, privacy, reliability, freedom,
offers a platform to develop digital business apps technological support and packages etc. In this
with faster mobile Backend as a Service. It also scenario, Dyn global leader firm in internet
offers capability to deliver apps faster by means of performance performed the fourth annual survey on
utilizing development resources of client choice. the “Future of Cloud Computing” (Manchester, NH,
Kinvey offer support capability to develop any kind June 2014). This research is performed in alliance
of application for any kind of mobile device with with Gigaom Research, North Bridge Venture
no platform lock-in problem. It offers safe mobile
 16

Partners and other 70 collaborating organizations. Imagine it, PaaS will build it. This term is
The result of this survey offers a glimpse into next absolutely true about present PaaS technology. The
generation cloud computing [81]. This survey next generation of PaaS will be achieving the real
showed that 42% of companies presently promise of object-oriented development and 4GLs.
emphasizing on adoption of hybrid clouds, while it Rapid development with less cost and work is now
is expected that it will increase to 55% in the next 5 becoming reality. PaaS transformed traditional
years [32]. As the Hybrid cloud is turning out to be application development approaches. Now
an ultimate choice of businesses. Till now, it is development is bit faster, flexible and cheaper. This
seen that in the hybrid cloud sector, Amazon and happens due to the elimination in most of
[Link] are performing very well. In the infrastructure related tasks.
future, it is expected that these companies will
In future, PaaS clients will experience much
capture a maximum market share [82]. Hybrid
deeper levels of abstraction. Application
cloud offers more reliability, the best features of
development within PaaS technology will be faster,
public and private PaaS so Hybrid cloud can be the
less costly and will offer better quality. The Next-
future of PaaS cloud development.
generation PaaS cloud is expected to revolutionize
Choosing the right PaaS platform for business is the development field through offering ease to non-
really important for any organization. It involves programmers and non-techies to develop the latest
analysis of number of factors and technological software applications at high speed for real
aspects. One of the main aspects is cloud basic competitive benefits. Businesses will also be able
architecture. Traditional PaaS platforms are based to focus on outlining their software requirements
on VMs supported architecture. However, intuitively and logically for more concrete
containers changed the whole game. Docker and developments. Business stakeholders will make use
Linux containers are poised to totally transform the of PaaS cloud to standardize their own quality
methodology of application development, software.
deployment and instantiated. The idea of containers
This research has assessed and analyzed the major
accelerated the way of application delivery through
trends, market status and future aspects of PaaS
making it easy to package app along with their
cloud. It also outlines the present market situation
dependencies. Consequently, the similar container
and future trends of PaaS technology. Top PaaS
based app is able to execute in different
market stakeholders and technology providers have
development, test and production environments.
been discussed with possible potentials to assess
We can say that era of containers based their possible future in the emerging PaaS market.
application development has arrived. Application [Link] and Amazon AWS PaaS is
packaging is becoming more significant because of performing quite well in the current market.
the arrival of fog computing, Internet of Everything Heroku, Google App Engine and Microsoft Azure
and a return to decentralized systems. are trying to become more and more competitive in
the next few years. While from upcoming PaaS
Cloud vendors are well responding with
companies, IBM’s BlueMix is one of the top
containers based innovations. Many cloud vendors
vendors, who initiated business with huge
initiated high-profile projects including Apache
investment and excellent quality services. Open
Mesos, Red Hat OpenShift, Google Kubernetes,
source PaaS platforms are also performing quite
VMware CloudFoundry and Cisco application
well and now offers a great deal of competition to
containers [83].
proprietary cloud providers. Cloud Foundry and
Beside the new evolving PaaS paradigms, Red-Hat’s OpenShift is one of the key examples of
fundamental PaaS architecture is also transforming. it.
Mobile PaaS is also an emerging PaaS paradigm
In the coming future, PaaS technology provider
that promises a great future. It is in evolutionary
will grab the major market share, which will offer
stages and need more time to mature. mPaaS also
more language support, automated development
has great potential to grab the huge market share
management tools, non-platform-lock-in
because in future, the demand for mobile apps is
development environment, security, quality of
going to be higher and higher.
services and the most important low cost services.
Future work is about analysis of Hybrid PaaS and Container technology is one of the key examples of
its possible assessment of the success factor for a PaaS innovation. New generation of PaaS
business. This work will also involve statistical application development is container based
assessment of performance and gains attained technology with more ease, abstraction and low
through this new technology platform. resource consumption. Though, few security issues
are still there but the future of PaaS is much
8 Conclusion aligned with container supported technology.
 17

Acknowledgement Management in Clouds " In Internet and

Web Applications and Services (ICIW),
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