Introduction
Iaas, Paas and Saas are cloud computing service models.
Iaas(Infrastructure as a Service) avails the infrastructure for computing, physical or virtual machines and other resources e.g. block and file based storage, virtual machine disk image library, load balancers, firewalls, IP addresses and virtual area networks.
PaaS(Platform as a Service) is used for applications and other development while providing cloud services to software.
SaaS is software which is deployed using the internet and used by somebody on a personal computer or local area network.
Examples of SaaS (Software as a Service)
Popular SaaS products in the market include collaboration and email, healthcare applications and customer rapport management. The following are some more examples:
a. Cisco WebEx
It’s a global conferencing cloud that synchronizes voice, video and data. WebEx meeting center is designed for business. A CMR(Collaboration Meeting Room) with a unique address is availed where you can meet with people from anywhere who may be joining from any standards-based video system. A unique ID for the meeting room is used.
No new equipment requires to be bought since you use the existing devices and network. The participants can join from any device including tablets, mobile phones and desktops experiencing the same sound and video quality.
Benefits
- There is accelerated making of decisions since the meeting is held from anywhere and thus no need for travelling to attend the meeting.
- There is flexibility since one can join the meeting from any device or technology.
- One has the ability to meet any number of people since the meeting room can accommodate a varying number of participants.
- It’s cheap and cost effective since there are no travel expenses. The initial investment is also low since there is no need for purchase of new equipment.
- The Cisco CMR (Collaboration Meeting Room) is scalable enough to be able to support up to 25 standards-based video endpoints, 500 audio meeting center users and 500 video enabled users in a single meeting.
b. Google Apps
A suite of applications also known as Google Apps for work offered through subscription by Google. Popular applications like Gmail, Google Drive, Google Hangouts and Google Docs are included and are free. There are also business specific features e.g. constant email and phone support. There are a couple of Google Apps:
Gmail
Gmail that is paid for has custom email addresses including customer’s domain name.
Google Drive
Users are able to upload, share and access files from the cloud from any tablet, smartphone or computer.
Google +
This is a social networking service for Google. It has features like private sharing in organizations and administrative controls that restrict profiles and posts visibility. There is an option where administrators can set communities that are restricted. It is said that Google + presence helps businesses with their search result rankings.
Google Hangouts
This is a service that allows up to ten people for the consumer version and up to 15 people for the work version to converse from their mobile device and computer. It enables viewing and sharing of things together. People can also stream live broadcasts to You Tube, Google + and their websites through the Hangouts on Air service.
Messages are kept stored online in Google’s cloud by the Hangouts app. The Google + integration save every photo people share in a shared, private album on Google+.
Google Apps Vault
It enables finding and preservation of information that may be useful in a court of law e.g. email messages.
c. Sales Force
A customer relationship management (CRM) service broken down into Sales Cloud, Data Cloud, Service Cloud, Collaboration Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Analytics Cloud and Custom Cloud. It provides companies with a platform for task and case management and a system for routing and escalating important procedures.
The Sales force client platform provides customers with the ability to track their own cases. It includes a plug-in for social networking that allows the user to join the conversation about their company on social networking websites. It also provides analytical tools and other services including email alert, Google search, chart and access to customer’s entitlement and contracts.
The Sales Cloud includes a real-time sales collaborative tool known as Chatter.
The author is the creative force behind nairobiTechie.He is happiest with a cup of tea on his side creating content and innovating. Contact him on [email protected]
