5 ms·

IaaS vs. PaaS vs. CaaS – Which Cloud Architecture Is Right for You?

66 points by phildougherty 11y ago

smaili 11y ago
Looks like the article has a "part 2" on a different page. Here's both links to make it a little easier: http://blog.containership.io/iaas-vs-paas-vs-caas-which-cloud-architecture-is-right-for-you-part-1-c7bf3c48c70c http://blog.containership.io/iaas-vs-paas-vs-caas-which-clou... http://blog.containership.io/iaas-vs-paas-vs-caas-which-cloud-architecture-is-right-for-you-part-2-a72623d7d001 http://blog.containership.io/iaas-vs-paas-vs-caas-which-clou...
insertnickname 11y ago
> Saving around $300/month is a lot of money for a lot of companies. You mean ones without any employees or an office?
- nostrademons 11y ago
  That would be most of them.
cpitman 11y ago
I never see this mentioned, but to me the most important feature of Docker based CaaS (or PaaS) is that they are no longer purely for hosting custom software. The focus of Heroku style PaaS systems has been the flow of code to running software, but what about applications I have no code for? I want to run GitLab, Mattermost, an API gateway, etc. With Docker based CaaS/PaaS, this is easy since apps can be easily packaged as containers that are treated the same as your own custom apps. This is only my opinion, but I think we are getting to the point where all server software can be run on something like Kubernetes and traditional virtualization becomes even more of a commodity. Disclaimer, I work for Red Hat! We have both a CaaS (RHEL Atomic Enterprise Platform ie Kubernetes) and a PaaS built on top of it (OpenShift v3). Containers taking over the entire data center is my own opinion, but it would be great!
- eranation 11y ago
  Sorry for the silly question but is CaaS "Containers as a Service"? (I assume it is not Content as a Service: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_as_a_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_as_a_Service) If so, then the wikipedia disambiguation page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAAS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAAS) redirects to a yet unwritten one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containers_as_a_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containers_as_a_Service ;)
  - phildougherty 11y ago
    Yes, Containers as a Service :)
    - eranation 11y ago
      Well... Here is your chance to be able to add "The guy who wrote the encyclopedia entry on CaaS" to your resume ;)
- phildougherty 11y ago
  I am in complete agreement. I don't think it's a question of if, and more a question of WHEN everything in the data center is containerized. The benefits far outweigh the negatives (like educating your whole staff on a new workflow or set of tools), and it seems that ease of use when it comes to the ecosystem/tools/orchestration is really the only hurdle keeping it from getting there. We're working on making those "non-custom" software packages easy to stand up and use via http://containership.io/#marketplace http://containership.io/#marketplace
- sytse 11y ago
  Awesome that you want to run GitLab in a CaaS. We want to make sure you can deploy all your software from GitLab to Kubernetes without using any glue. Work on this is being done by the Redspread team in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/1300648 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/1300648
  - 11y ago
cmalpeli 11y ago
Can someone explain to me why I would consider moving from Heroku to CaaS? Saving $300/month sure as hell doesn't seem worth it.
- phildougherty 11y ago
  There are various reasons, but here are a few of the big ones: 1. Getting ahead of your costs before they start to shoot up as you grow. Check out this pricing calculator for an idea of what I mean: http://containership.io/#pricing http://containership.io/#pricing 2. Cloud portability: Heroku runs in 2 AWS regions (us-east-1, eu-west-1). What happens if you want to host in a specific country, a completely different provider (maybe you have some free credits?) or even your own data center eventually? Not gonna happen with heroku. 3. More flexibility to run the types of databases, queues, or other open source software that isn't possible to run on Heroku. 4. With CaaS you have root access to the servers powering your software, where Heroku is more of a black box. Remember what happened with (rap)Genius? http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/14/heroku-admits-to-performance-degradation-over-the-past-3-years-after-criticism-from-rap-genius/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/14/heroku-admits-to-performanc...
diegorbaquero 11y ago
When you go from $100 Dedicated Server with 10TB of bandwidth in average, to $900+ in AWS just for the bandwidth, well, you gotta think about it. Heroku puts a 2TB/month BW soft limit, that won't cut for some of us.

66 points by phildougherty 11y ago

Looks like the article has a "part 2" on a different page. Here's both links to make it a little easier: http://blog.containership.io/iaas-vs-paas-vs-caas-which-cloud-architecture-is-right-for-you-part-1-c7bf3c48c70c http://blog.containership.io/iaas-vs-paas-vs-caas-which-clou... http://blog.containership.io/iaas-vs-paas-vs-caas-which-cloud-architecture-is-right-for-you-part-2-a72623d7d001 http://blog.containership.io/iaas-vs-paas-vs-caas-which-clou...

insertnickname 11y ago

> Saving around $300/month is a lot of money for a lot of companies. You mean ones without any employees or an office?

nostrademons 11y ago
That would be most of them.

cpitman 11y ago

I never see this mentioned, but to me the most important feature of Docker based CaaS (or PaaS) is that they are no longer purely for hosting custom software. The focus of Heroku style PaaS systems has been the flow of code to running software, but what about applications I have no code for? I want to run GitLab, Mattermost, an API gateway, etc. With Docker based CaaS/PaaS, this is easy since apps can be easily packaged as containers that are treated the same as your own custom apps. This is only my opinion, but I think we are getting to the point where all server software can be run on something like Kubernetes and traditional virtualization becomes even more of a commodity. Disclaimer, I work for Red Hat! We have both a CaaS (RHEL Atomic Enterprise Platform ie Kubernetes) and a PaaS built on top of it (OpenShift v3). Containers taking over the entire data center is my own opinion, but it would be great!

eranation 11y ago
Sorry for the silly question but is CaaS "Containers as a Service"? (I assume it is not Content as a Service: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_as_a_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_as_a_Service) If so, then the wikipedia disambiguation page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAAS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAAS) redirects to a yet unwritten one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containers_as_a_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containers_as_a_Service ;)
- phildougherty 11y ago
  Yes, Containers as a Service :)
  - eranation 11y ago
    Well... Here is your chance to be able to add "The guy who wrote the encyclopedia entry on CaaS" to your resume ;)
phildougherty 11y ago
I am in complete agreement. I don't think it's a question of if, and more a question of WHEN everything in the data center is containerized. The benefits far outweigh the negatives (like educating your whole staff on a new workflow or set of tools), and it seems that ease of use when it comes to the ecosystem/tools/orchestration is really the only hurdle keeping it from getting there. We're working on making those "non-custom" software packages easy to stand up and use via http://containership.io/#marketplace http://containership.io/#marketplace
sytse 11y ago
Awesome that you want to run GitLab in a CaaS. We want to make sure you can deploy all your software from GitLab to Kubernetes without using any glue. Work on this is being done by the Redspread team in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/1300648 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/1300648
- 11y ago

cmalpeli 11y ago

Can someone explain to me why I would consider moving from Heroku to CaaS? Saving $300/month sure as hell doesn't seem worth it.

phildougherty 11y ago
There are various reasons, but here are a few of the big ones: 1. Getting ahead of your costs before they start to shoot up as you grow. Check out this pricing calculator for an idea of what I mean: http://containership.io/#pricing http://containership.io/#pricing 2. Cloud portability: Heroku runs in 2 AWS regions (us-east-1, eu-west-1). What happens if you want to host in a specific country, a completely different provider (maybe you have some free credits?) or even your own data center eventually? Not gonna happen with heroku. 3. More flexibility to run the types of databases, queues, or other open source software that isn't possible to run on Heroku. 4. With CaaS you have root access to the servers powering your software, where Heroku is more of a black box. Remember what happened with (rap)Genius? http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/14/heroku-admits-to-performance-degradation-over-the-past-3-years-after-criticism-from-rap-genius/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/14/heroku-admits-to-performanc...

diegorbaquero 11y ago

When you go from $100 Dedicated Server with 10TB of bandwidth in average, to $900+ in AWS just for the bandwidth, well, you gotta think about it. Heroku puts a 2TB/month BW soft limit, that won't cut for some of us.