Cloud Computing: A Comparison of IBM Cloud PaaS with Microsoft Azure PaaS

This report compares IBM Cloud PaaS with Microsoft Azure PaaS in terms of services, design quality, navigation, and ease of application development and deployment.

Running head: CLOUD COMPUTING
Cloud Computing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................2
Cloud Service Providers:............................................................................................................2
Reasons for choosing Microsoft Azure for comparison purpose:..........................................3
Comparison and Contrast of IBM Cloud PaaS with Microsoft Azure PaaS:............................4
Comparison of service offered by both Cloud Service provider:..........................................4
Design Quality and PaaS System Navigation:.......................................................................6
Level of Difficulty for Development and Deployment of Applications:...............................7
Cost Model:............................................................................................................................9
Management of Application:..................................................................................................9
Deployment of Hello World Application:............................................................................10
Opinions Based on the above Comparison:.............................................................................11
Better Service Provider:.......................................................................................................11
Area of Improvement:..........................................................................................................12
Conclusion:..............................................................................................................................12
References:...............................................................................................................................14

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Introduction:
The process cloud computing is considered as one of the crucial emerging technology
in the present generation. In the current situation many day to day work is now based on the
cloud computing. Generally, this cloud computing is considered as the on demand availability
of some specific computer resources which varies upon user request (Rittinghouse and
Ransome 2016). The functions of the cloud computing services is distributed over various
locations from the actual central server. Cloud are mainly two types. The first one is the
enterprise cloud and the second one is the public cloud. There are another type of cloud is
available which is the hybrid cloud and it the mixture of the enterprise cloud and the public
cloud. Currently in this sector the largest public cloud is the Amazon AWS (Ryan and
Lucifredi 2018). In the corporate sector mainly the public cloud and the hybrid cloud is used
for minimising the cost of IT infrastructure. It has been also assessed that the cloud
computing allows the organizations to run their applications way much faster with less
maintenance and improved manageability.
In this report a brief discussion about the cloud computing and its facilities in the
industrial sector will be done. First of all four types of cloud service providers will be
recognised who provides the PaaS service in the cloud architecture for development of
application. Then one of the selected cloud server will be compared with the IBM cloud
PaaS. From the detailed comparison of the IBM cloud PaaS and the selected cloud service
provider best service provider will be chosen and the reason behind choosing them will be
described and the area of improvement of them will be also evaluated in this report.
Cloud Service Providers:
In the aspect of cloud computing many vendors are available which provides cloud
computing services to the many enterprises and organizations. These cloud computing service

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providers mainly provides three types cloud services which are the Infrastructure as a Service
(IaaS), Platform as a Service and the Software as a Service (SaaS). All of these services
regarding cloud are used for different types of services. In this case the main priority is
development of applications and due to this reason PaaS has been selected which will provide
the support for developing application. In this category four biggest providers of cloud
service who provides PaaS for the application development are the Elastic Beanstalk by
Amazon Web Services, Azure by Microsoft, Openshift by RedHat and App Engine by
Google (Ghosh, Ghosh and Das 2015). Here one PaaS service providers from the above will
be compared with Bluemix which is another most important cloud PaaS provider by IBM.
In this report for the comparison purpose with the IBM PaaS service Microsoft Azure
platform has been selected. There are several reasons behind choosing the Microsoft Azure
for the comparison purpose.
Reasons for choosing Microsoft Azure for comparison purpose:
Main reason behind choosing the Microsoft Azure for the contrast purpose are the:
 The first reason for selecting the Microsoft Azure over the other three cloud service
providers is regarding the PaaS capabilities. All of the four selected cloud service
providers are having similar types PaaS capabilities in machines, storage and virtual
networking. However, Microsoft Azure wins this competition as this cloud service
provides faster and stronger PaaS capabilities which is now very much important part
of the cloud infrastructure for sustaining in this competitive market (Barga et al.
2015).
 The second reason for selecting Microsoft Azure over the other cloud service
providers is its integrated environment. As application development is the main
priority in this case, this advantage of the Microsoft Azure has been considered in this

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case. This integrated environment of the Microsoft Azure provides developing, testing
and deployment of the cloud apps which are necessity for the application
development. In this case client can also choose the open development languages and
frameworks for the migration of Azure. In this sector the other cloud service providers
perceived as very much complicated.
Contrast and Comparison of IBM Cloud PaaS with Microsoft Azure PaaS:
In this comparison between the IBM Cloud PaaS and Microsoft Azure PaaS several of
aspects of both the services will be compared. This comparison will be done regarding IoT
applications, Artificial Intelligence and many more emerging applications which both the
platform supports (Russell and Norvig 2016). Also, the navigation of the PaaS system and
design quality of it will be compared in this case. Further in this comparison model difficulty
in the deployment process and the cost for the deployment process will be compared.
Comparison of service offered by both Cloud Service provider:
For proper environment of application development several of services need to be
considered in the PaaS cloud service. There are several services which are provided by these
type of PaaS cloud service provider which includes applications regarding artificial
intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), database services, API development and management
and communication related services (Gheith et al. 2016). There are many more other services
also, which is presented by the PaaS cloud service providers, but the above mentioned
services are very much important for the development of applications in the PaaS cloud
interface.
Considering the cloud PaaS services offered by the IBM there are several services. In
this case for the application development the key services offered by the IBM are the
artificial intelligence, internet of things, database related services and analytics services.

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Also, the PaaS cloud environment of IBM offers micro service architectures and API services
with that enterprise application services is also provided by IBM which are absolute
necessary for development of applications. In the database model of the IBM several a rich
portfolio of NoSQL and SQL databases are provided which are able to handle mobile and
web apps, transactional workloads and a fast analytics (Watts 2018). By the analytics service
of IBM data science tools can be founded and data warehouse can be used for performing
analytics job on large sets of data. In the department of analytics apache spark, analytics
engine and the decision optimization are the most important parts. In the artificial intelligence
services IBM Watson is used for visual recognition, machine learning and natural language
processing. The IoT services by IBM provides a platform which connects data along the
devices with the APIs and data sets from the Weather Company. In the Microservices
architecture and APIs services microservice architecture is leveraged a development an API
set and customised mircoservices for the environment of client which is deployed after
building through DevOps.
Considering the Microsoft Azure, main services which is offered by them regarding
application development in PaaS cloud environment are the application development
framework and the analytics services. Some additional services is also provided by the
Microsoft Azure which are the scheduling, directory, workflow and security related services
(Persico et al. 2015). Within the development framework the Microsoft Azure provides the
framework which can be used by the developer for building or developing applications which
are based on the cloud environment. The PaaS service by Azure also allows the developers to
create and develop applications by using the built-in software components. The main features
provided by this PaaS cloud service are the multi-tenant capability, high availability and
scalability. Due to this services of the Azure PaaS environment, the effort which was given
by the developers previously, is reduced drastically. The analytical services provided by the

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Microsoft Azure PaaS service allows third party organizations to analyse their data and helps
to mine their data. This also helps the organization in the decisions regarding product design,
business decisions and helps to improve the forecasting and predicting the outcomes.
Database related storage is also provided by Microsoft Azure.
Comparing Microsoft Azure PaaS service with the IBM PaaS cloud service irt has
been founded that PaaS service provided by the IBM is more efficient than the Microsoft
Azure in the case of application development. Both of them provides some unique services to
its user but in the case of IBM, the services is more proficient for application development as
IoT and AI related services is provided by IBM. On the other hand Azure is also beneficial
for many developers as this provides built-in software components for application
development purposes but in overall comparison IBM provides much better services for the
application development.
Design Quality and PaaS System Navigation:
The design of IBM PaaS service interface is very much innovative. The default
background of IBM PaaS is dark and on that dark background there are colourful hexagon
tiles for each of the each services. Each of this services has some parent category in which
this tiles are arranged beautifully. The runtime services are in rounded shape. In this PaaS
environment the main categories in which the services are residing are runtimes, data service
management, internet of things, mobile services, web and app application and the dev ops
(Husni et al. 2016). Due to this arrangement the navigation of the IBM cloud PaaS becomes
also very much easy. On the homepage of the IBM cloud PaaS all the services offered by the
IBM cloud PaaS is categorised properly into groups. Users can choose the viewing option of
all categories or they can choose some specific categories in which only the services will be
shown which are related with the chosen category. This makes the navigation very much easy
for the users they if they are aware the specific service they want. If the users is not sure

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about in which category the service resides then user can take help of the section named “All
Categories” to find their desired service. This option will let the user to navigate through all
the services offered by the IBM cloud PaaS service. Though all the services will be visible to
users at once, they will be able to easily navigate through it without being getting confused
because of the arrangement of tiles in IBM PaaS interface. This attributes of navigation and
design of IBM cloud PaaS service makes it very much accessible for the user for application
development process.
(Figure 1: Service Catalog of IBM Bluemix)
(Source: Crated by the Author)
Considering Microsoft Azure the PaaS service interface is also very much innovative
in this case. The design of Microsoft Azure is very much attractive also. Like the IBM PaaS
service, Azure is also having tile structure for the PaaS service which is offered by them. In
this case the design of Azure is different from the IBM PaaS service. Comparatively it can be
said that the design of Microsoft Azure is more attractive but actually this is a choice of
user’s perspective. The main tiles of the Microsoft Azure PaaS services are divided into eight
categories (Kumar et al. 2016). These eight categories are security and compute,

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management, web and mobile, developer service, integration, hybrid operations, analytics
and IoT, data and media and CDN (Content Related Network) related services. These are the
main categories of Microsoft Azure PaaS services and in this categories there are various sub
categories which are the main services offered by Microsoft Azure. Like the IBM PaaS
services there are no “All Categories” section are available, but as per the design of Microsoft
Azure’s PaaS service interface “All Categories” section is not required as all the sub
categories are expanded under the main categories by default. That means user will be able to
see all the services offered by Microsoft Azure cloud PaaS. In this case also, though all the
services are visible to the users at one instance, the users doesn’t get confused at all and it
becomes possible due to its navigation structure (Basak et al. 2017). Navigating through the
services offered by Microsoft Azure is very much easy as all the services are categorised very
well. Users doesn’t get confused at all while navigating through the service page. Thus the
design quality and the navigation of Microsoft Azure’s PaaS service is very good.

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(Figure 2: Dashboard of Microsoft Azure)
(Source: Created by the Author)
Level of Difficulty for Deployment and Development of Applications:
For the IBM PaaS service it is determined that developing an application is very much
easy for a professional developer in the PaaS cloud service environment of IBM. In this case
creating the IBM account for application development is free and there are just some simple
step which need to be followed for the application development. This becomes easier to
follow the steps as all the steps are demonstrated by the IBM themselves. In this case the
developer need to have a proper knowledge about the programming languages which are
required to work on IBM cloud PaaS. Rest of the things are very much easy. Deploying the
applications is also very much easy in the PaaS cloud service by IBM. The application can be
deployed in native cloud environment. For the application deployment process manual way
can be used by utilising the built in DevOps in the PaaS service of IBM (Collinaszy, Bundzel
and Zolotova 2017). Through this DevOps CLI commands can be used for the deployment of
applications. This deployment process can be somehow tough for the beginners but very
much easy for the experienced developers.

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(Figure 3: Services of Application Deployment in Bluemix)
(Source: Created by the Author)
The application development platform of Microsoft Azure is more advanced
compared to the IBM cloud PaaS service. There are total five application development
platform that is offered by Microsoft Azure and all of them uses very much advanced
programming language. Thus it is not possible for the normal or low level developers to
develop application in this Microsoft Azure platform. As the Microsoft Azure is very much
advanced in nature this is the main reasons behind its complexity for the application
development process (İnci et al. 2016). In the case of application deployment process this is
again more complex compared with the application deployment process in the IBM PaaS
cloud service. This application deployment process is different for each of the application
development platform. This deployment process is different for all the ASP.NET, Java and
Node.js. The easiest way of deploying the application on the azure is use of Azure App
Service Deploy which can be complicated for many users. So overall the Microsoft Azure is
more complicated for both the app development and deployment process in cloud.

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(Figure 4: PaaS Services Provided by Microsoft Azure)
(Source: Created by the Author)
Cost Model:
Considering the cost model of IBM PaaS service there is currently two models. One is
the lite version, which is completely free and another one is the paid version which provides
more services and more advanced features compared with the lite or the free version. The
base price of the paid version starts from approximately $90 per month. With the lite version
users only get 256 MB of Cloud Foundry memory, 1 service per lite plan and collection of
service garbage. In the paid version the users only need to pay what they use and in this
package the users also gets free half GB of container and runtime memory.
Comparing cost of Microsoft Azure with the IBM PaaS service it has been seen that
Azure provides only one month of free service where the IBM PaaS service does not have
any time limit of using their free services. There are four types of cost slabs are available
currently. These four are the developer, standard, professional direct and premier version.
The cost of developer version is approximately $28/month, standard versions cost around

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$87/month, professional direct version cost around $956/month. Currently open price of the
premier versions is not available.
Management of Application:
The management of application in the IBM PaaS cloud service is very much easy.
Users can easily upgrade or downgrade the resources which are very much important for the
application development including memory, space and computing power. For some paid
plans the IBM provides unlimited storage for the application development. In the normal
plans the users will be able to upgrade the storage plan but for some specific number of times.
Also, the user will not be able to modify RAM and individual cores. User need to select a
profile in which the configuration of individual cores and RAM will be predefined. IBM
cloud CLI is required for updating the host URLs, data centres and the code of the
application. Using CLI can be difficult for many users who are new with this type of system.
Thus performing this application is a bit complex for many users.
The Microsoft Azure also provides the capability of changing the resources as per the
requirement of the user. The Azure provides the capability of increasing disk performance,
storage, network and CPU. Upgrading the resources is very much easy in the environment of
Azure if the new upgrading plan is supported by the current hardware. If the hardware is
capable of supporting the new resources then it can be easily done through the Azure portal.
Changing the host URL and the hosting data centre of the programs can be easily done in the
environment of Azure. For updating or the changing purpose the Azure portal of the users can
be used. In this portal the host URLs can be changed through the menu of app registration
list.

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Deployment of Hello World Application:
Deployment of a simple Hello World application in the IBM cloud PaaS is somewhat
easy for the new users. They just need to follow some steps for deploying the Hello World
application in the IBM cloud PaaS. These steps are discussed in the following section.
1. In the first step the user need to create a tool chain for the Hello World application.
The tool chain can be created by logging into the IBM cloud (Persson and
Angelsmark 2017) and from there tool chain can be created through the DevOps
dashboard.
2. Then a simple webpage need to be created for the deployment of Hello World
application. Webpage can be created by using any type of IDE.
3. The third step is creating a manifest, which will demonstrate the IBM cloud how the
application will be deployed. The manifest provides important instruction about
deploying application on the clouds.
4. The next step is deploying the application. The Hello World application can be
deployed through the Web IDE by using the deploy button in IDE.
5. The last step is committing the changes to the repo. All the changes in the Git Repo
need to be saved for permanent deployment.

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(Figure 5: Hello World program deployment in IBM Bluemix)
(Source: Created by the Author)
The deployment of Hello World application is also same like the IBM cloud PaaS service.
The steps for deploying Hello World application is discussed below.
1. First of all a normal website need to be created for the application development of
Hello World.
2. In the next step a new project need to be created in the ASP.NET web application
within the Microsoft visual studio. An internet application will be chosen in this case.
3. Then the created website need to be checked and it can be checked by starting the
webpage through pressing the F5 button. The output website will be ASP.NET MVC
4 website (Naylor 2016).

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4. In the next step this website will be published by using the user portal of Azure. In
this case the published website also need to be validated.
5. The published website can be modified and the hello world application will be added
to it. Then the website will be published again in which quick overview of the Hello
World application be there.
Opinions Based on the above Comparison:
Better Service Provider:
In the above contrast between the IBM cloud PaaS service and the Microsoft Azure it
has been seen that in many of the cases the IBM cloud PaaS service is performing better than
the Microsoft Azure and vice versa, but from the analysis of the overall scenario, IBM cloud
PaaS has been designated as the better cloud service provider in the comparison. In this case
IBM has performed better as in most of the cases IBM has dominated the Microsoft Azure.
Microsoft Azure is more complicated compared to the IBM cloud PaaS due to some of its
advanced features and this is one of the key reason behind that the IBM has been selected as
the better provider regarding cloud services. Also, in many cases both of the cloud service
provider performed equally but in the cost structure again the IBM performed better as it
provided free services for a lifetime period of time. Also, other cost structure of IBM is more
beneficial than the Azure. Though the IBM dominated the Azure, the Azure beaten IBM in
the case of design and navigation aspect.
Area of Improvement:
From the brief discussion and contrast of the Microsoft Azure and IBM PaaS service,
it has been determined that both of the service providers need some improvement in their
provided service so that their overall service can be improved. For the IBM cloud PaaS
service it has been determined that the IBM needs to increase their number of services for the

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application development in the PaaS cloud environment with minimum complexity.
Currently, the Microsoft Azure is having many services that is offered for the application
development. In this sector the Azure is very much strong but most of their processes are
very much complex in nature. The app deployment process is also very much complex that it
might be difficult for normal user to deploy a simple applications such as hello world. Thus
Azure needs to work on this area of improvement and they need to simplify their application
usage process so that efficiently in the working process can be achieved.
Conclusion:
From the above discussion and comparison it can be concluded that both the IBM
cloud PaaS service and the Microsoft Azure are one of the most important cloud service
provider in the current market. It has been assessed that both of the IBM cloud PaaS service
and the Microsoft Azure is both provides PaaS related services but in this case the IBM is
more efficient for providing PaaS related services. In this discussion, initially there are total
four vendors has been identified which provides PaaS related services in the current market.
Those four services are the Amazon Web Services, Azure by Microsoft, Openshift by RedHat
and App Engine by Google. In the further discussion Microsoft Azure has been chosen for
the comparison with IBM cloud PaaS service. Microsoft Azure has been chosen in this case
as among the four cloud service Azure was the best cloud service provider. Comparison has
been done in the topic of service offered by both cloud service provider. With that
comparison has been also done on the basis of navigation and the design quality of PaaS
system offered by the IBM and the Microsoft Azure. Step by step demonstration has been
also provided based on hello world application deployment for both of the cloud service
provider. In the further section opinion has been provided based on which service provider
performed better and the reason behind it is also provided in this case. Improvement area for
both the cloud service provider has been demonstrated in this report.

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