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The Platform as a Service (PaaS) market continues to grow by leaps and bounds.  In any growing and complex market, we’re always looking to make better sense of things, and perhaps look at ways to break things apart into segments.

PaaS providers offer the ability to design, build, and deploy applications on cloud-based platforms.  That is where the similarities end.  Some have built-in databases, some don’t.  Some have middleware services, and even application design subsystems.  Some focus on specific vertical industries, such healthcare and finance, providing pre-built, vertically-focused business processes, services, and schemas.

As we understand more about PaaS providers, and the complex array of services they offer, it’s certainly not unexpected that we begin to focus on the specific component parts.  I see them as database, application development, middleware services, and business processes.

The idea is that if we focus on the components of PaaS, as well as IaaS, for that matter, we’ll get better at understanding and optimizing the specific components of PaaS.  Perhaps one day we’ll have the ability to mix-and-match components to create the perfect custom PaaS solution.  That’s a few years off, I suspect.