Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) lacks true leaders in SA and vendor tie in such an immature, fast-growing space is dangerous, notes Rob Gilmour of RSA Web.
Gilmour says PaaS provides a web-enabled development and run time environment on which web-based applications can be built. However, he states that he foresees challenges for SA businesses in regards to the development of PaaS.
Commenting on SA's readiness for PaaS, Gilmour says there are insufficient PaaS offerings that allow users to build applications using the popular standards-based programming languages. Most PaaS offerings, he notes, have a custom tool set that, while offering powerful features to the developer, they don't allow for application migration to another vendor should users wish.
“Most PaaS offerings are tied into a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) vendors offering, for instance Force.com, allowing applications to be built for Salesforce.com. Not many businesses in SA utilise these platforms on a large enough scale for it to make sense to build on top of them,” he says.
He also notes that since most PaaS offerings are hosted from overseas, SA businesses might also find them difficult to use. “The generic PaaS platforms are all hosted in the US or Europe. When building business critical widely utilised enterprise applications, this sort of latency can not be tolerated,” he explains.
Programming language can also be a major drawback for PaaS development in SA, adds Gilmour. “PaaS offerings are still in their infancy and the widely used programming languages don't have mature enough PaaS environments yet.”
However, he notes that the ideas and technology behind PaaS are sound for consideration by SA business though they need more time to blossom. “The technology just needs time to mature and for more players to enter the market. As the platforms mature, become more globally relevant and their adoption increases, I think they will become more compelling to SA”, he says.
In the interim, Gilmour believes, SA developers should be looking to utilise locally hosted Infrastructure-as-a-Server (IaaS) offerings to achieve the benefits of scalable pay as you use resources and build applications on top of proven Linux or Microsoft stacks.
“IaaS, where CPU, RAM and storage is sold on pay as you use basis, is far more compelling today as you can pick up your operating system and move from one provider to another. There is no provider tie in and developers can move from the same development environments they are currently using into the cloud.
“All the benefits with an easy migration path with very low risk. So I can say IaaS is the sweet spot for SA right now”, he says.
He adds that PaaS also carries the same advantages as other cloud computing variants like pay as you use billing, capacity on demand, flexibility and scalability.
“If you are a start-up wanting to build an application that ties in with a larger SaaS offering and you can make use of their PaaS offering to developers (like in the SalesForce.com example) then I would recommend PaaS.
“PaaS allows developers to focus on developing the application not worrying about scaling, or making a large capital intensive infrastructure investment up front”.
He concludes by saying for start-ups with global market ambitions who want to leverage a SaaS platform that already has loads of users and traction, PaaS is the way to go, but for South African businesses wanting to build bespoke software applications for the South African market or for their own internal use, the road is more dangerous.
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