Introduction

The cloud in azure offers three main categories of cloud services. The Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS), and Software as a Service(SaaS).

Each of theses services have different responsibilities as seen on with different responsibilities kind of like a pyramid, as displayed in figure 1.

Figure 1 - Categories of cloud services.

The higher in the pyramid the lesser the control, the lower in the pyramid the more control one has over the software.

Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS)

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is related to the hardware the system is making use of. Creating an IaaS in azure causes the allocation of a Virtual Machine. In some cases you will be responsible for installing or configuring the Operating system for that Virtual Machine and keeping up with the software updates for that machine.

Figure 2 - Azure Virtual Machine.

Platform as a Service(PaaS)

Platform as a service (PaaS) azure will provide the Operating System and will handle installing and configuring software on that operating system for the users need.

There are many services available in azure some of these are:

• Azure Storage
• Azure Cosmos DB
• Azure CDN
• Azure Database for MySQL

Software as a Service(SaaS)

Software as a service (SaaS) azure will have control of basically everything. This enables users to use out of the box solutions such as:

• Microsoft 365
• Xbox Live
• One Drive
• Power Automate

References

1. IaaS
2. PaaS
3. SaaS