Cloud Options – different flavors of the Cloud, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS.

In the past year I have been asked several times about the ‘Cloud’.  Many customers think the cloud is a magical place where users train themselves, systems never go down, internal IT is no longer needed and an overall feeling of rainbows and kittens.
Before moving to the cloud there are several factors to consider.  The cloud is not always right for every customer every time. One of the primary things that companies should think about is what ‘type’ of cloud solution is best for their business.  Each flavor of cloud comes with benefits and drawbacks that need to be matched up the business’s needs prior to taking the cloud plunge.  Even within each option there are several different levels of service offered.  
This is a brief and highly over simplified description of the ‘favors of the cloud’
IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service
This option usually means the business will have complete access to the servers.  It is commonly revered to as a Co-Lo or co location.  The servers are hosted off site however most of the maintenance from the OS up is done by internal IT.  The most flexible of all the options it provide most of features an OnPrem (on premise or internal) solution would.  With that flexibility it demands a higher level of maintenance for the internal IT staff.   
PaaS – Platform as a Service
The in between SaaS and PaaS solution.  It is not complete SaaS where the customer never has to login to a server, but it usually comes with far more services than IaaS.  Depending on where in the spectrum a customer choses this option can provide help desk support, patching and basic maintenance.
SaaS – Software as a Service
The pure SaaS play encompasses things like Office 365 and Salesforce.  The customer doesn’t even have to know if it is running on SQL, Oracle, Windows, Unix ect.  It is the lowest maintenance of all the options but is also the least flexible.   

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