Infotech Lead India: IBM India announced Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering in the country.
IBM’s PaaS will compete with other cloud computing services such as Infrastructure as a Service and Software as a Service.
PaaS offers a foundation of common application services, tools and templates for businesses to rent and build their own software applications quickly and deploy them into an automated environment.
The new PaaS offering is expected to assist to organizations build and deploy their own software applications effectively by renting IBM’s PaaS cloud computing platform of integrated middleware, monitoring, networks, servers and storage.
Recently, IBM’s survey of more than 1,500 IT decision makers from 18 countries found early adoption of PaaS for business advantage – citing big data as the #1 reason amongst several strategic initiatives they were targeting.
Nearly 20 percent of respondents are currently using PaaS, though more than half recognize the opportunity.
“Just as auto makers have used common platforms or chassis to manufacture their lines of cars more efficiently, PaaS allows organizations to standardize their IT platform and quickly introduce new competitive offerings,” said Erich Clementi, senior vice president of IBM Global Technology Services. “IBM is focused on industrializing this cloud platform to drive business innovation around key enterprise applications.”
IBM’s new PaaS cloud offering, SmartCloud Application Services, provides self-service, instant access to an application development suite of tools, middleware and databases, available via pattern-based technology.
According to the IBM study, 49 percent of IT decision-makers see the strategic importance of PaaS as a way to drive innovation and improve the whole application lifecycle across the enterprise.
They believe PaaS can drive greater differentiation and strategic impact for a business, by standardizing efforts for development, deployment, production and maintenance.
“One of the most important benefits of PaaS is the ability to use patterns. They give us tested templates for jumpstarting specific applications very quickly with all the favorable attributes of the cloud,” said George Knoll, general manager of HHG.
While cloud adopters have concerns like security and RoI, PaaS user have overcome their hesitations and are now most concerned about performance and service quality.
“We’re a small business now capable of offering a flexible platform that can readily adapt to meet the shifting demands of the software development industry,” said Steve Clune, CEO of CLD Partners.
