220-1101 Question 375
Single answerPlatform as a service (PaaS)A small software company wants to move a customer-facing web application to the cloud as quickly as possible. The development team wants to keep focusing on writing and testing code, while the cloud provider handles the operating system, runtime environment, patching, and automatic scaling of the application platform. Which cloud model best fits these requirements?
- A
Platform as a service (PaaS)
- B
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
- C
Software as a service (SaaS)
- D
Private cloud
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
The best answer is Platform as a service (PaaS). In a PaaS model, the provider manages the infrastructure and platform layers so developers can concentrate on application development and deployment. This is the key distinction from IaaS, where the customer still manages more of the software stack, and from SaaS, where the customer consumes a finished application instead of deploying one. CompTIA A+ Core 1 cloud computing objectives commonly test the ability to distinguish service models based on responsibility boundaries. Major cloud providers describe PaaS similarly in their documentation: customers deploy applications while the provider manages the underlying platform components such as the OS, runtime, and scaling mechanisms.
- A. Correct.
Correct. PaaS provides a managed application platform where the cloud provider handles the underlying infrastructure, operating system, middleware, runtime, patching, and often scaling features. This matches a scenario where developers want to deploy and manage code without maintaining servers or the platform stack.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. IaaS provides virtualized compute, storage, and networking resources, but the customer is still typically responsible for managing the operating system, runtime, middleware, and many platform-level tasks. Someone might choose this option because it is cloud-based and flexible, but it does not reduce platform management enough for this scenario.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. SaaS delivers a complete software application to end users, such as email or CRM, rather than providing a development and deployment environment for a company's own custom application. This is a common misconception because SaaS also reduces management overhead, but it does not fit a team deploying its own code.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Private cloud describes a deployment model, not a service model. A private cloud could potentially host PaaS, IaaS, or SaaS offerings, but by itself it does not indicate that the provider will manage the application platform, runtime, and patching.