I need a crash course!

Hey folks,

This is going to seem silly, but I'm hoping this is the right place to ask -- and if it isn't, I apologize.

Basically, I recently got this great job with an IT company that focuses on hosting and cloud technologies. I have always been pretty good and understanding personal computing (tech, hardware, troubleshooting), and basic networking, but I'm having trouble grasping some of these concepts and I'm hoping I can get a good explanation. The thing is, my job is in Marketing and not anything tech.

Basically, in regards to the service stack when referencing a cloud, I understand the IaaS (Infrastructure as a service) and the SaaS (Software as a Service), but I am having trouble understanding the PaaS (platform) aspect which encompasses the OS and the infrastructure software.

I've come to the realization that this is simply because I don't understand what the platform layer is on a fundamental level. I've never worked in IT and my computing experience is limited to desktops running whatever version of Windows and then applications within Windows, not servers.

So basically, what exactly is the platform layer? With my computing experiences being only with desktops and laptops on a consumer level, it's hard for me to visualize the existance of something between the OS and the software that runs ontop of the OS. I hope I've explained my curiosity well enough for you guys to understand me. If I have not, I suppose I guess I am wondering how you would explain what a server platform is to someone that has never worked with server.

Much help is appreciated as always!

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azjag

Platform as a service - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Computing platform - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The platform layer would be the Operating system that is being used. Linux, Unix, Windows and Mac are the most common OS's.
One might pick Linux for the ability to customize the OS to suit a specific need.
Or pick a Windows OS for compatibility or simplicity.

With my computing experiences being only with desktops and laptops on a consumer level, it's hard for me to visualize the existence of something between the OS and the software that runs ontop of the OS.

My smart ass remark would be device drivers. But I don't think that is what you are asking. An example of something that runs on-top of the OS and the software would be an email server. Let say you have a windows desktop with MS outlook installed. This is you interface for handling emails. In order for you to send and receive email you would need an email server. This email server runs on the server OS and handles all the "behind the scenes" work related to emails. Sending, receiving, address lists, bounce backs, calendars, email storage and forwarding to name a few things the email server would handle behind the scenes.

Yes this may be a flawed example but it's the best I could come up with.

scott28tt

The "platform" in the sense of PaaS is the software on which your applications run.

Operating systems typically support applications written using many different programming languages/interfaces, such as Java, the Microsoft .NET Framework, Flash, Adobe AIR, and many many others - all these languages/interfaces can run on top of a Windows operating system for example.

An application will typically be written using a single specific programming language/interface, and that programming language/interface will communicate with the infrastructure layer (virtual and/or physical hardware) through the operating system, as per the graphic in your post above.

An organization offering PaaS is providing an entire application development environment, not just hardware, not just an operating system, and not a ready-written application either.

Some examples of the larger public PaaS providers would be Microsoft Azure, Amazon EC2, Google AppEngine.

Scott.

JDMurray

"Platform" is a very broad and vague word, but "Operating Environment As A Service" was just too clunky.