What is Platform as a Service (PaaS)?

Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides faster development and deployment platforms by abstracting the user from the OS while adding well-defined APIs to many essential services (such as the Web, databases, mail, queues, and storage) that the developer must use. Both sides benefit; development should be faster and the end product should be more reliable more quickly. Typically PaaS also provides monitoring and administrative consoles tightly designed around the platform, making operations easier. At the same time, by maintaining tight control over what is executed when, PaaS can make better decisions about machine load, at least in theory. Another side effect is a vendor lock-in, desirable to the vendor but maybe not to the developer. Windows Azure is a good example of a PaaS-style cloud.