Big Data Top Reason To Deploy PaaS: Study

In a world awash in data, where complexity is on the rise and the pace of innovation has never been faster, the need to streamline new application development is driving demand for a relatively new form of cloud computing known as Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). This was the finding of a new study released by the IBM Center for Applied Insights. IBM is also announcing the general availability of a new PaaS offering for the fourth quarter to help organisations build and deploy their own software applications quickly and effectively by renting IBM’s PaaS cloud computing platform of integrated middleware, monitoring, networks, servers and storage.

IBM’s survey of more than 1,500 IT decision makers from 18 countries found that forward looking IT leaders are blazing the trail with early adoption of PaaS for business advantage – citing big data as the number 1 reason among several strategic initiatives they were targeting. The study also showed that nearly 20 percent of respondents are currently using PaaS, although more than half recognise the opportunity.

Business and technology leaders are beginning to seek out this new type of cloud computing to keep computing costs low and to expedite delivery of new products and services. Unlike other cloud computing services, such as Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Software-as-a-Service, PaaS uniquely offers a foundation of common application services, tools and templates for businesses to rent and build their own powerful software applications quickly and deploy them into an automated environment.

“Just as auto makers have used common platforms or chassis to manufacture their lines of cars more efficiently, PaaS allows organisations to standardise their IT platform and quickly introduce new competitive offerings,” said Erich Clementi, Senior Vice President of IBM Global Technology Services. “IBM is focused on industrialising 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.

The study found that 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 are now contemplating using PaaS as a pragmatic approach to future expansion. IT decision-makers also believe PaaS can drive greater differentiation and strategic impact for a business, by standardising efforts for development, deployment, production and maintenance.

Client Pioneers For PaaS

The study identified a group of early adopting PaaS “Pioneers” (comprising 16 percent of the survey respondents) who saw the strategic benefits of PaaS as a way to innovate. The research showed that the more strategic the benefit, the greater separation between the Pioneers and the rest of the respondents.

According to Pioneers, access to tested “patterns” – which leverage both human expertise and data to create a template for complex tasks common to many development efforts – differentiates the unique value of PaaS from other cloud alternatives.

These companies use PaaS to set up new testing environments and add users in a matter of minutes. These time savings, along with PaaS’s pay-as-you-go subscription model, have helped PaaS pioneers drive down their overall development costs.

Study’s Key Findings

Pioneers ranked the primary drivers for their PaaS journey, which include: data management, integration and analysis, efficiency and resiliency.

Key findings include:

• Among Pioneers, 52 percent are driving towards application integration and better data management.

• The current and planned usage rate for Pioneers is three times higher for analytics than other respondents.

• Pioneers were almost twice as likely to identify pattern-related qualities, such as portable, standardised, and repeatable, as highly valuable compared with the rest of the respondents.

While cloud adopters have concerns like security and ROI, the PaaS pioneers have overcome their hesitations and are now most concerned about performance and service quality. In that vein, nearly half of Pioneers noted they have used application outsourcing, a rate of 70 percent higher than the rest of the respondents combined and their usage rate for public cloud development environments is almost six times greater.

“This study is one of the first deep dives into what arguably is considered the least understood area of cloud computing,” said Kevin Thompson, manager at the IBM Center for Applied Insights. “The major finding is that these cloud Pioneers have a greater comfort level with the cloud concept and depend on its repeatable and standardised best practices to focus greater efforts at the application level driving business innovation.”