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1
Deploying Cloud Applications
on PaaS: What to Consider
Platform as a Service technologies have evolved quickly in recent years, now
offering broad support for application development. But this new, hassle-free
world needs some ground rulesand fast. BY ADAM RIGLIAN

AN INTRODUCTION
TO APPLICATION
DEVELOPMENT WITH PAAS

CHOOSING A PAAS: QUESTIONS

TO ASK VENDORS

STRATEGIES FOR PAAS

APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

FROM DEVELOPMENT TO
APPLICATION MANAGEMENT

EDITORS NOTE

Getting to the Core

Home
Editors Note
An Introduction
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Development
With PaaS
Choosing a PaaS:
Questions to Ask
Vendors
Strategies for
PaaS Application
Development
From Development to Application Management

In their seminal Harvard Business Review

article, C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel wrote,
core competencies are the wellspring of new
business development.
Today, with Platform as a Service (PaaS)
technologies, make that new application development, too. That is the message in this
SearchCloudApplications.com handbook.
The idea of core competencies empowering
cloud development is natural: Focus on what
you do best, like writing code, and everything
else, from server maintenance to testing, give
to someone else. [Developers] are just developing; we are doing our real job. [There is] no
installation or tuning of database, application
server, et cetera, Jrmy Hrault, a Francebased Java developer, told reporter Adam
Riglian. We select which kind of environment
we would like to have and then we go for coding. Its 100% of the time on development.

The same goes for Matt Fischer, director of

engineering services at Boston-based recruitment software vendor Bullhorn. Our core
competency is application development; we
are not a technical operations or cloud operations team, Fischer said. Identify what your
core competency is as a development organization, he said. I think most will come to the
realization that the infrastructure to support
and maintain a development environment is a
distraction.
Indeed, PaaS can help realign the goals of his
development team and set developers free of
tasks in which they do not specialize. If core
competency strategies work for the business,
they will work for the developers. n

2 D E P L OY I N G C L O U D A P P L I C AT I O N S O N PA A S : W H AT T O C O N S I D E R

Scot Petersen
Editorial Director,
SearchCloudApplications.com

GETTING STARTED

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An Introduction
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With PaaS
Choosing a PaaS:
Questions to Ask
Vendors
Strategies for
PaaS Application
Development
From Development to Application Management

An Introduction to Application Development With PaaS

Platform as a Service has been talked up
as a must-have for enterprise development
teams, but adoption of PaaS technology has not
kept up with the hype.
Ask any PaaS vendor about adoption, and
most give the same response about PaaS application developmentwere still explaining
what it is and how it works. Gartner has suggested that PaaS adoption rates will grow but
also acknowledges that many major vendors
wont have fully formed platforms until the
end of 2013. [Vendors] are focused on talking
to customers and explaining how PaaS can fit
their needs and how they can really take advantage of PaaS, said Krishnan Subramanian, principal analyst with Rishidot Research.

MAKING LIFE EASIER

PaaS technology has been positioned as a way

to eliminate all the hassles of development,

allowing developers to build and deploy applications without having to worry about anything else.
For Jrmy Hrault, a France-based Java developer and an early adopter of PaaS, those
ideas became realities. [Developers] are just
developing; we are doing our real job. [There
is] no installation or tuning of database, application server, et cetera, said Hrault, a selfdescribed technophile who enjoys dabbling
with new technologies. We select which kind
of environment we would like to have and then
we go for coding. Its 100% of the time on
development.
Hrault is not alone in having more time to
spend in development. Matt Fischer, director of
engineering services at Boston-based recruitment software vendor Bullhorn, started working with a PaaS in an effort to realign the goals
of his development team.
Our core competency is application

3 D E P L OY I N G C L O U D A P P L I C AT I O N S O N PA A S : W H AT T O C O N S I D E R

GETTING STARTED

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An Introduction
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Choosing a PaaS:
Questions to Ask
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Strategies for
PaaS Application
Development
From Development to Application Management

development; we are not a technical operations

or cloud operations team, Fischer said.
Fischer said that the development team
needed a scalable and seamless way to deploy
to the cloud but didnt have the time or the
skill to handle all the tedious labor that went
into it. He shopped around for a PaaS vendor,
and it ended up being a long-term fix for his
problem. He offers simple advice for development teams in the same position.
Identify what your core competency is as
a development organization, he said. I think
most will come to the realization that the infrastructure to support and maintain a development environment is a distraction.

NO MORE MIDDLE MAN

Paul Burns, a consultant with Fort Collins,

Colo., analyst group Neovise, believes that
PaaS application development has not only
set developers free in terms of eliminating
monotonous work, it has also allowed them
to skirt the operations team when the time
comes to test the application.
Its DevOps, this concept of how you

automate and streamline all these activities for

developers so that youre saving them time or
removing their dependency on the operations
team, Burns said.

PaaS is offering applications

scalability for few costs, so we
have the possibility to get scalable
environments for our applications.
jrmy hrault, Java developer
and early PaaS adopter

Most of Hraults work with PaaS is centered

on developing and deploying new applications.
He believes that PaaS technology has not only
changed his development life from a time management perspective, but also changed the way
he designs applications.
PaaS is offering applications scalability for
few costs, so we have the possibility to get
scalable environments for our applications,
Hrault said. Therefore we have to think differently [about] the design of our applications.
While PaaS has challenged Hrault and other

4 D E P L OY I N G C L O U D A P P L I C AT I O N S O N PA A S : W H AT T O C O N S I D E R

GETTING STARTED

Home
Editors Note

developers to think about how to build applications with scalability in mind, it has also forced
them to consider new problems. Hrault said
that one of the first questions he would have of
a PaaS vendor would be about lock-in.
Can we do platform-independent code? I
dont want to do specificPaaSdevelopment, he
said.
From a management perspective, Fischer also

believes PaaS has helped him better redistribute limited IT resources. All cloud technologies
share the selling point of lower startup cost
and ultimately lower cost in general if done
correctly.
If I have that budget to spend on resources,
I should be spending that budget and that time
on developers who are going to be innovative,
he said. n

An Introduction
to Application
Development
With PaaS
Choosing a PaaS:
Questions to Ask
Vendors
Strategies for
PaaS Application
Development
From Development to Application Management

5 D E P L OY I N G C L O U D A P P L I C AT I O N S O N PA A S : W H AT T O C O N S I D E R

2
PLANNING

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An Introduction
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Choosing a PaaS:
Questions to Ask
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Strategies for
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Development
From Development to Application Management

Choosing a PaaS: Questions to Ask Vendors

The decision to incorporate a Platform
as a Service product into a company doesnt
end there. More than one vendor is out for
the enterprise PaaS dollar, and given the influx
of marketing surrounding the topic, deciding
on the right platformor platformswont
be easy.
The decision to use PaaS in the first place is
actually a fairly simple one. PaaS provides distinct advantages for the enterprise. One is that
with cloud computing, the cost risks are low
and its easy to try something out on a limited
basis before diving in. Another is that PaaS
vendors are hungry to turn technology into
profits and are willing to answer questions at
the negotiating table.
Its the vendor selection phase that organizations need to prepare for carefully.

PART OF THE STRATEGY

Knowing the right questions to ask is part of

the challenge of choosing a PaaS vendor. There
are plenty of places to start from a technology
standpoint, but Jeff Kaplans immediate concerns are economic. You want to make sure the
vendor you select has financial viability, that
theyre going to be around, said Kaplan, managing director of Wellesley, Mass., consultancy
THINKstrategies. If theres any dependency
involved, you dont want them going out of
business or being acquired by a company that
could discontinue support of that platform.
As simple as it sounds, many cloud upstarts
face this problem. The cloud market has rapidly
expanded, and dozens of new platforms exist,
with contraction through acquisition or business failure always looming.

PaaS vendors are hungry to turn technology into profits and are
willing to answer questions at the negotiating table.
6 D E P L OY I N G C L O U D A P P L I C AT I O N S O N PA A S : W H AT T O C O N S I D E R

2
PLANNING

Home
Editors Note
An Introduction
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With PaaS
Choosing a PaaS:
Questions to Ask
Vendors
Strategies for
PaaS Application
Development
From Development to Application Management

The questions on the technology side of

PaaS dont need to be too advanced at the outset. Paul Burns, an analyst with consultancy
Neovise, recommends making sure the vendor
supports the language that matches the development teams skills. From there, managers
need to be able to identify what a prospective
platform specializes in.

be more focused on runtime or application

management.
Is it good for developing brand new applications or for helping existing applications run
better in the cloud, or for both of those? Burns
said.

FUNCTIONALITY FIRST

In my opinion, Platform as a

Service is one of the most evolving
parts of cloud computing,
compared to SaaS or IaaS.
paul burns, analyst, Neovise

In my opinion, Platform as a Service is one

of the most evolving parts of cloud computing,
compared to SaaS or IaaS, Burns said. Some
vendors are really focused on the deployment
aspect, so I think you want to figure out what it
is they do.
Burns sees different platforms playing on
different ends of the application lifecycle. Some
are more focused on deployment, others might

Identifying functionality is crucial for managers, many of whom havent developed an

understanding of what PaaS is, according to
Krishnan Subramanian, principal analyst with
Rishidot Research and a cloud computing author. He said the first thing he hears chief
information officers (CIOs) ask is whether
a platform can support a legacy application,
something he thinks is a mistake and represents a misunderstanding of what PaaS is currently used for.
Subramanian doesnt just pour cold water
over CIOs dreams of cutting costs on supporting legacy apps. He offers several more constructive lines of questioning, beginning with
one thats on a lot of analysts minds.
Does the vendor make it easy to take

7 D E P L OY I N G C L O U D A P P L I C AT I O N S O N PA A S : W H AT T O C O N S I D E R

2
PLANNING

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Editors Note
An Introduction
to Application
Development
With PaaS

the applications and the data out of their

platform?
Application portability and data portability
are huge issues in cloud computing, according
to Subramanian. The lack of portability, popularly referred to as lock-in, is one of the biggest
concerns still lingering about cloud computing,
along with security.
Subramanian thinks enterprises should seek
out PaaS vendors supporting open protocols
and open standards to solve the lock-in problem. Portability concerns tie in with Kaplans
thoughts on seeking out potential PaaS vendors

with long-term financial viability, because if

data isnt portable and a vendor is failing financially, then data could be lost.
Doom and gloom scenarios aside, Kaplan also
believes its important to look beyond the PaaS
vendor to the user community, because good
ones are hard to find, and they ultimately help
to drive platforms.
How vibrant is the ecosystem of third-
party developers? Kaplan said. Hopefully, that
development environment is supported by a
number of third-party developers who you can
further integrate with. n

Choosing a PaaS:
Questions to Ask
Vendors
Strategies for
PaaS Application
Development
From Development to Application Management

8 D E P L OY I N G C L O U D A P P L I C AT I O N S O N PA A S : W H AT T O C O N S I D E R

BEST PRACTICES

Home
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An Introduction
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Choosing a PaaS:
Questions to Ask
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Development
From Development to Application Management

Strategies for PaaS Application Development

Working on the technology frontier is
surely thrilling for those involved, but its also
a difficult environment without standards or
rules.
Platform as a Service (PaaS) application development is on that frontier. It is a relatively
young area of cloud computing, one that is still
being evangelized by vendors and studied by
developers and business decision makers. It has
the potential to be a force in the cloud economy but is also an enigma at this point, largely
misunderstood in part because of aggressive
cloudwashing.
With any emerging technology, there are calls
to create a set of standards, best practices and
strategies. It has not happened formally with
PaaS cloud computing yet, but there are plenty
of people working in the field who are willing
to offer their own advice on how to use PaaS in
the enterprise.
Krishnan Subramanian, principal analyst

with Rishidot Research has plenty of advice for

developing applications with PaaS. At the top
of the list: Make sure to build applications for
the cloud.
Make it more compartmentalized, make it
more modular and develop your apps in that
way, Subramanian said. That will let you
take advantage of the distributed nature of the
cloud.

PAAS POTENTIAL

He added that a lot is still misunderstood

about PaaS cloud computing in the developer
community, and plenty of evangelizing and educating work remains. That education is twofoldexplaining how PaaS works and how to
develop applications for the cloud.
Subramanian believes developers need to
change the way they do certain things when
designing applications for the cloud. He thinks

9 D E P L OY I N G C L O U D A P P L I C AT I O N S O N PA A S : W H AT T O C O N S I D E R

BEST PRACTICES

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From Development to Application Management

developers need to not only make their applications more modular, but design them for
varied performance. Build for failure, which is
becoming a mantra among cloud developers, is
crucial, according to Subramanian.

A lot of people who have been in the

industry for a long time are frightened of making a move because they
think they have to make a big bet.
jeff kaplan, managing director,
THINKstrategies

If build for failure is a mantra, than DevOps

is quickly becoming a new religion. DevOps refers to the practice of combining an IT departments development and operations to create
better communication between the two and
rapidly increase the speed at which applications
are developed and deployed.
Paul Burns, an analyst with Neovise, believes
DevOps is an important part of working with

PaaS cloud computing, because both the methodology and the technology are aimed at saving
developers time and eliminating their dependency on the operations team.
Subramanian also suggests that developers
should keep their code and database simple and
find a way to store data so that it can scale. He
also believes developers must look to the future
and build their applications with tomorrows
standards in mind. This means planning for
portability and interoperability.
Jeff Kaplan, managing director of THINKstrategies, believes that one of the best approaches the enterprise can take toward
PaaSor most any cloud technology for that
matteris to take it out for a test drive.
The whole beauty of this business is the opportunity to pilot or incrementally invest in a
SaaS app, IaaS or PaaS alternative, Kaplan said.
A lot of people who have been in the industry
for a long time are frightened of making a move
because they think they have to make a big
bet. If theres a best practice, its that the cloud
frees you from that. n

1 0 D E P L OY I N G C L O U D A P P L I C AT I O N S O N PA A S : W H AT T O C O N S I D E R

EVOLUTION

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An Introduction
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With PaaS
Choosing a PaaS:
Questions to Ask
Vendors
Strategies for
PaaS Application
Development
From Development to Application Management

From Development to Application Management

Platform as a Service has been pitched to
development teams as a way to handle the operations work and allow them to simply write
code. But that is just one aspect of PaaS.
Different platforms are designed for different things, and while all PaaS providers share
the same underlying principles, not all excel at
the same tasks. Vendors are often focused on
different aspects of the application lifecycle
some on continuous integration and delivery
and rapid deployments; others on managing
apps once they are deployed.
Paul Burns, analyst with consulting group
Neovise, believes that PaaS has been used as
too much of a catch-all. One specific focus
Burns sees as growing is moving existing applications to the cloud with a PaaS platform.
You take an existing application and you
make it run in a cloud environment and take
advantage of some of the underlying capabilities like elasticity, he said.

Platform vendors are pitching more than just

the ability to move existing apps into the cloud.
Collaboration tools for distributed development teams, continuous integration and deployment tools and configuration management
capabilities are all becoming standard.
Burns works with many users who are interested in moving existing applications to
the cloud but dont understand how to do it.
He said many of them eventually go the PaaS
route, seeking out platforms with a focus on
application lifecycle management. While Burns
sees many users looking for those types of
platforms, analyst Krishnan Subramanian said
that enterprises moving essential applications
into the cloud are still several years away.
Nobody has really taken it to that level,
he said.
Enterprises that are moving some applications to the cloud are hoping to gain greater
resiliency and interoperability with different

1 1 D E P L OY I N G C L O U D A P P L I C AT I O N S O N PA A S : W H AT T O C O N S I D E R

EVOLUTION

environments even if the applications werent

designed for the cloud, Burns said.

DIFFERENT FOR DEVELOPERS

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Jrmy Hrault, a France-based Java developer,

said his job has changed dramatically since the
introduction of PaaS. He said developers are
now hosting source code and applications with
a PaaS platform and using continuous integration tools during the development and deployment stages.
Hrault believes PaaS has changed the way
applications are managed, by centralizing and
standardizing build and deployment lifecycles
in one place for an entire development team.
The centralization is part of what creates the
speed at which cloud applications are built.

ADDING VALUE TO PAAS

From Development to Application Management

Jeff Kaplan, managing director of consulting

group THINKstrategies, sees many PaaS us-

ers trying to extend the value of a product

they already own. While development is PaaS
most talked-about use case, other aspects of
the application lifecycle are perhaps the larger
uses.
Most of them are basically extending the
value of the core application that they already
invested in. Salesforce is the clearest example
of this, Kaplan said, adding that a company
that has already invested in that type of platform is more likely to build add-ons to extend
it rather than develop and deploy new applications. Its similar to what we saw back in
the client-server arena but a lot simpler and a
lot more economical, and likely the success is
higher as well.
Kaplan uses the example of an enterprise
building CRM applications on a platform that
is unique to its business and valuable to it specifically. Platforms that gain large third-party
developer followings are often set up so they
can add value to the platform and build applications on top of it. n

1 2 D E P L OY I N G C L O U D A P P L I C AT I O N S O N PA A S : W H AT T O C O N S I D E R

ABOUT
THE
AUTHOR

ADAM RIGLIAN was the site editor of SearchCloud

Applications.com. Before that, he worked at Metro

West Daily News in Framingham, Mass., where he
was a reporter and copy editor. To reach him, email
editor@searchcloudapplications.com.
Home

Deploying Cloud Applications on PaaS:

What to Consider is a
SearchCloudApplications.com e-publication.

Editors Note

Scot Petersen | Editorial Director

Jason Sparapani | Managing Editor, E-Publications

An Introduction
to Application
Development
With PaaS

Joe Hebert | Associate Managing Editor, E-Publications

Jan Stafford | Executive Editor
Linda Koury | Director of Online Design
Neva Maniscalco | Graphic Designer

Choosing a PaaS:
Questions to Ask
Vendors

Doug Olender | Publisher

dolender@techtarget.com
Annie Matthews | Director of Sales
amatthews@techtarget.com

Strategies for
PaaS Application
Development

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