According to Gartner, these PaaS technology and platform architecture trends both reflect and drive the trends in the continuous transformation of cloud computing and digital business.
“As organisations embrace cloud platforms, they find themselves facing a variety of changes,” said Yefim Natis, distinguished research vice president at Gartner.
The key PaaS technology and platform architecture for 2019 are:
A booming PaaS market
According to figures from Gartner, as of 2019, there are a total of 360 vendors in the PaaS market, offering more than 550 cloud platform services in 21 categories. Gartner predicts that, from 2018 to 2022, the market will double in size and that PaaS will be the prevailing platform delivery model moving forward.
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“All PaaS segments show healthy growth rates. However, the market remains short on standardisation, established practices and sustained leadership. Vendors need to address those issues in a timely to encourage adoption by more risk-averse organisations,” said Natis.
The cloud platform continuum
PaaS capabilities are all about supporting cloud platforms. At the same time, cloud services such as infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) can be critical factors for a platform. Together, those services constitute the cloud platform continuum. To look for and recognise the opportunities for platform-based innovation across the entire spectrum of cloud services will soon be part of every cloud strategy.
“Organisations that embrace the potential roles and unique differentiators of IaaS, PaaS and instrumented SaaS in the spectrum of cloud platform capabilities stand to extract the greatest value from their cloud investments,” said Natis.
Cloud-native design
Gartner has noted how many PaaS technology and platform architectures are designed in a way that reflects the essentials of the cloud experience.
Recent examples of cloud-native technologies include serverless platforms, micro-virtual machines and low-code offerings.
Nearly half of platform as a service (PaaS) offerings are now cloud-only, says Gartner
Gartner has announced that nearly half of today’s platform as a service offerings are cloud-only
“‘Cloud computing’ is evolving to become just ‘computing,’ and cloud-native design in new investments is becoming pervasive across organisations, use cases and deployment models,” added Natis.
Enterprise IT becomes a service provider to the business organisation
“What we see is that central IT starts to provide the business organisation with enablement services such as platforms, training, consulting and support. They are also in charge of overall governance,” said Natis.
This trend is being spurred by the combined influence of innovations such as low-code tools, machine-learning-assisted development and self-service consumption models, which lead to a redefinition of the role of central IT — away from a “factory” delivery and towards a “service provider” approach.
Gartner clients can read more in the report, Key Trends in PaaS and Platform Architecture, 2019, here.
