Platform as a service (PaaS) is a category of cloud computing services that provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing and launching it. PaaS can be delivered in two ways: as a public cloud service from a provider, where the consumer controls software deployment and configuration settings, and the provider provides the networks, servers, storage and other services to host the consumer’s application; or as software installed in private data centers or public infrastructure as a service and managed by internal IT departments.

Platform as a service promises significant savings of both time and money. The biggest names in cloud computing all offer PaaS solutions — as do countless providers that specialize in everything from mapping to content management to mobile app development. A few offerings already comply with the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, and a 2013 survey of federal IT professionals found that 95 percent believed their agency would benefit from migrating to PaaS.

Now the reason why PaaS is mysterious for many is a matter of structure and security. Many of the most popular early PaaS solutions, such as Heroku and Engine Yard, were available only in the public cloud, limiting their practical appeal for most federal agencies. Today, however, a wide array of PaaS providers offer private enterprise versions, while Pivotal’s Cloud Foundry and Red Hat’s OpenShift also come in downloadable, open-source versions that can be hosted locally or in a user’s own cloud.

A more significant challenge, however, might be pinning down what qualifies as PaaS. While software as a service (SaaS) is now a familiar concept and the paired pressures of FedRAMP and data center consolidation have put infrastructure as a service (IaaS) on most agencies’ radar, PaaS remains something of the muddle in the middle — more easily defined by what it isn’t than what it is. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has detailed the differences between PaaS and its sibling services, but it boils down to this: In addition to virtualized and easily scalable hardware, PaaS provides a ready-to-use suite of code libraries, change-management tools and other application-building resources that the provider installs and maintains.

Federal Communications Commission CIO David Bray said PaaS lets agencies “ideally begin to build up this library of reusable modules, much like a quilt,” so that functions such as user authentication or map-based data visualization can be built once and then used by many different systems. “Then in the future, if Congress…or the president asks us to do something, it’s not a matter of building a system from scratch.” There are many organizations adopting PaaS. “There are some early adopters scattered throughout government,” Bray said, particularly in the Defense Department and the intelligence community. However, PaaS remains aspirational for many agencies. In the 2013 survey (a Red Hat-sponsored MeriTalk study) that showed overwhelming belief in the benefits of PaaS, just 12 percent of respondents said they were already using it. And although 71 percent said they were at least considering a transition to PaaS, a recent search of FedBizOpps found just one solicitation in the past year that explicitly called for PaaS.

Other IT leaders said the slow embrace likely reflects uncertainty — not about PaaS’ potential benefits but about most agencies’ specific needs and the type of developer skills that will be available. Compared to IaaS, “PaaS has a greater degree of ease and efficiency, but it also comes with a significant loss of freedom,” one agency’s senior developer said. “The needs [can be] so diverse that paying for and committing to a platform as a service doesn’t make a lot of sense right now.”

A year to 18 months down the road, “once things settle down a bit,” the developer added, “that’s when we would commit to PaaS.” And even when an agency is prepared to zero in on a particular platform, there’s still the small matter of payment. With the operation and maintenance of legacy systems consuming 70 percent or more of agency IT budgets, there’s precious little money available to try something new — particularly when a PaaS investment cannot be directly tied to a mission system.

“That’s why we have to make the case to Congress for the initial investment” in PaaS, the FCC’s Bray said. “We need that little bit of breathing room so that we get out of the existing legacy model. Otherwise, the legacy model is just going to get more and more expensive.”

Editor’s Note: Ideas inspired from;

Tony K. Schneider. “Can PaaS carve out its place in the federal cloud?– FCW.”

FCW. N.p., Web. 28 Feb. 2016.

Habit of forgetting things often? Propensity to misplace car-keys knowing how irritating it is to look for them whilst you are running late? Well, technology companies have solution for every little problem these days. When you’ve lost something, another set of eyes can spot clues that your own eyes inadvertently ignore.

In 2013, a crowdfunded project known as the Tile became a smash hit, racking up over $2,500,000 in funding from nearly 50,000 backers. The secret to its success? Simple: The Tile promised to help users locate any object attached to the coin-sized Bluetooth-connected tag priced at $20. Similar Project; Phone Halo’s TrackR was trying to establish this idea. However, both these projects TrackR and Tile used similar technology. This technology uses a small handy instrument (TrackR is a small, circular device and Tile is a small, square device). You attach them to things you’d miss if they went missing, and when those things inevitably do go missing, you can use your smartphone app to make the TrackR or Tile beep so as to find them. They also try to find your stuff when it’s farther away near you. Both of these products use the concept of “crowdsourcing” and Crowd GPS.

Crowd GPS is based on the idea that if you can’t find something, say, your keys, maybe someone else can — as long as they also happen to be using the TrackR or Tile app (iOS and Android), with Bluetooth turned on and crowd GPS enabled. Your lost keys will give off a unique identifier that can be detected by other people’s apps, sending you GPS data about where they are.

In addition to using the crowd to learn your lost item’s GPS coordinates, the TrackR app also helps you find things that are close by, and alerts you before you walk away from a spot without bringing your phone or TrackR-labeled device. This works by setting off an alarm on the device when it and your phone are separated by more than 100 feet. Likewise, if you press a tiny button on the TrackR, it can locate your iPhone or Android phone by setting off an alarm on the phone, even if the phone is in silent mode.

So what happens when your Tile/ TrackR can’t be located by going back to the last place your app saw it?

Tile calls it the “Community Find” feature. Turns out, every person who keeps the Tile app open on their iOS device becomes a node in a much larger Tile network. For example, were there 5 Tiles at the Starbucks this morning? Your Tile app took note of them. Your cubicle mate left their Tiled keys at their desk during lunch while you worked straight through? Your Tile app knows that too, even if you and your cube mate don’t. The same will be true for your Tiles.

If there’s a killer ingredient to the Tile, this is it: By leveraging the combined tracking power of thousands of Tile users (er, Tilers?), that paltry 150-foot Bluetooth radius is amplified many times over

While Tile’s ability to notify you of nearby lost items via alarms is helpful, it’s not unique. They need enough people to use its app to make its crowd tracking worthwhile, and they won’t likely use the app unless they have a device. The Community Find method relies on people having the Tile app installed — and running — on their iOS device. If the app is closed, it cannot track the presence of Tiles.

One key factor to remember with both of these networks is that their crowd GPS techniques rely on strong communities of users. That means that people who live in more densely populated areas, like big cities, are more likely to have luck when tapping the crowd for finding lost things. And, of course, the product has to have a lot of people using it in order for the crowd GPS to really work well.