Key Considerations for platform as a service.

Platform as a service is now an emerging area and below are the key considerations while providing java as a software development as a service. There’s a fair bit of overlap between the features that available cloud services offer, but the key points to consider from a software development platform point of view are as follows:

■Costs and pricing strategies vary widely across vendors. Some charge based on fine-grained usage details, while others provide duration-based subscriptions. You need to evaluate whether you would like to

go with a subscription or with a pay-as-you-go model.

■ Are the supported technologies and features in line with your requirements? Is your chosen framework officially supported by the cloud vendor? Which version is supported?

■Is the vendor sticking to standard technologies, or would you need to write custom, vendorspecific code?

■ Considering that you are putting your precious application and data on the vendor’s hardware, you want to be sure about the vendor’s credentials and ability to be up and running, say, 10 years from now.

■With PaaS, you do not have access to the actual hardware setup or micro details about  hardware performance. So you need to evaluate the administration dashboard carefully,  because it’s the primary source of information about the service and about how an application is performing.

■ Is the PaaS solution integrated with your favorite Java integrated development environments (IDEs)?

■ Ease of use is quite important because some cloud services can be rather confusing and, at times, even intimidating. I found this especially true with services that support not just Java but many other technologies as well.

■Most cloud vendors support at least one SQL data store and, in

some cases, a NoSQL data store as well. You need to examine whether these work for you.

■ Is the vendor offering a closed stack that would lock you in? Would it be possible for you to migrate to a new vendor if the need arises?

■ While some vendors are focused Java cloud players, there are others that support multiple technologies. This seems to affect the features, the documentation, the ease of use, and the overall priority areas for the

service. Some clouds offer Java support, but they just don’t come across like they are talking about Java.

■How difficult would it be to build a team capable of developing and deploying for a particular PaaS?