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A Brief Analysis of Saas, PaaS and IaaS of Enterprise Cloud Services

 

Introduction

The rapid development of the Internet industry, cloud services have become particularly important. Almost every enterprise needs to use cloud computing services to manage a large amount of sensitive and confidential data. Therefore, the use of cloud services in any type of enterprise is inevitable. of.


Generally speaking, enterprises have three cloud computing service models to choose from, software as a service (SaaS), which is a complete software application with a user interface; platform as a service (PaaS), in which developers can deploy their own applications A platform for programs; Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), provides machine, storage, and network resources that developers can manage by installing their own operating systems, applications, and support resources.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

Software-as-a-Service (also known as cloud application services) represents the most commonly used option for enterprises in the cloud market. SaaS leverages the Internet to deliver applications to its users, which are managed by third-party vendors. Most SaaS applications run directly through a web browser and do not require any download or installation on the client-side.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

The delivery model of PaaS is similar to SaaS, except that software is provided over the Internet, PaaS provides a software creation platform. Available over the web, the platform gives developers the freedom to focus on creating software without worrying about operating systems, software updates, storage, or infrastructure. PaaS allows businesses to design and create applications built into PaaS using special software components. Due to certain cloud characteristics, these applications or middleware are scalable and highly available.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

IaaS provides organizations with cloud computing infrastructure, including servers, networks, operating systems, and storage, through virtualization technology. These cloud servers are usually provided to clients via dashboards or APIs, and IaaS clients have full control over the entire infrastructure. IaaS provides the same technology and functionality as a traditional data center without the need to physically maintain or manage it. IaaS clients still have direct access to their servers and storage, but they all go through a "virtual data center" in the cloud.

In contrast to SaaS or PaaS, the IaaS client is responsible for managing aspects such as the application, runtime, operating system, middleware, and data. However, IaaS providers manage servers, hard drives, networking, virtualization, and storage. Some providers even offer more services beyond the virtualization layer, such as databases or message queues.

Each cloud service (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS) is tailored to the business needs of its target audience. From a technical point of view, IaaS gives you the most control but requires extensive expertise to manage the computing infrastructure, while SaaS allows you to use cloud-based applications without managing the infrastructure, while PaaS provides An environment for developing, testing, and managing applications, therefore, PaaS is ideal for software development companies.

To sum up, IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, which cloud service is right for you? Now it's time to choose the cloud-based service you want, in reality, the choice is entirely dependent on business goals, so consider your own needs first.

Summary of Security

Cloud security starts with a cloud security architecture. An organization should first understand its current cloud security posture, and then plan the controls and cloud security solutions it will use to prevent and mitigate threats. This planning is critical to secure hyper-complex environments, which may include multiple public clouds, SaaS and PaaS services, on-premise resources, all of which are accessed from both corporate and unsecured personal devices.
  • The complexity of cloud-based deployments
  • Impaired visibility across services, applications, and data in the cloud
  • Lack of automated, real-time configuration security posture assessments against recommended best practices, such as those published by the Center for Internet Security (CIS Benchmarks).

SaaS Security

SaaS applications such as Microsoft 365, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, and many more support the core functions of all organizations, including marketing, communications, source code management, partnerships, and more. Later, these applications as well as the data they store, process, and transmit become the new recording systems for everything from patient and client data to work details. Considering the reliability of these applications, the sensitivity of the data, and the need for data integrity, these applications have become part of an important IT infrastructure stack.

Loss of productivity, potential penalties for non-compliance, damage to reputation, acquisition and legal costs, and loss of sales prospects all need to be taken into account when assessing the actual impact of a data breach.

SaaS adoption has grown too quickly for security teams to keep pace with the new risks and vulnerabilities applications bring. Out-of-the-box security settings may not comply with organizational standards and customization makes security more challenging.

PaaS Security

PaaS platforms enable organizations to build applications without the overhead and complexity associated with managing hardware and back-end software. In a PaaS model, the CSP protects most of the environment. However, the company is still responsible for the security of the applications it is developing.

Therefore, a PaaS security architecture is similar to a SaaS model. Ensure you have CASP, logging and alerting, IP restrictions, and an API gateway to ensure secure internal and external access to your application’s APIs.

IaaS Security

Data in the cloud is exposed to the same threats as traditional infrastructures. Due to a large amount of data, platforms of cloud providers become an attractive target for attackers. Data leaks can lead to a chain of unfortunate events for IT companies and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) providers.

The cloud environments are often prone to the use of all kinds of phishing, scams, exploits, and various attempts to manipulate data.

The purpose of the latter is to use cloud resources for criminal activity: launching DoS attacks, sending spam, distributing malicious content, etc. It is extremely important for suppliers and service users to be able to detect such activities. To do this, detailed traffic inspections and cloud monitoring tools are recommended.