Enterprise PaaS Comparison Guide

How to Choose the Right Platform For Your Organization

A P P R E N D A Guidance

A P P R E N D A Guidance

Enterprise PaaS Comparison Guide

How to Choose the Right Platform For Your Organization
SUMMARY
More than 80% of large organizations are actively evaluating enterprise Platform as a Service (PaaS) and conducting a PaaS
comparison for development in public, private, and hybrid clouds.* As a foundational software layer and an application run-time
environment, enterprise PaaS removes the complexities of building and delivering applications and enable organizations to turn
ideas into innovations faster.
Conducting a PaaS comparison among vendors is essential for procurement, yet little guidance is available on the decision
workflow. The following guidelines can help organizations that are looking at PaaS to find the best solution.
RESEARCH THE MARKET
A handful of vendors have emerged as leaders in the enterprise PaaS space. According to Gartner, more than 85% of enterprise
apps are written in .NET and Java. For .NET, enterprises typically only research Apprenda. For Java, organizations usually investigate
three vendor products:
V EN D OR

E NT E R P R IS E R U NT IM E S

CO NTAC T

Apprenda

Java and .NET

Contact Apprenda

Pivotal CF
(Commercial Distribution of Cloud Foundry)

Java

Visit Pivotals website for

contact information

Red Hat OpenShift

Java

Visit Red Hats website for

contact information

As part of this process, enterprises invite vendors to demo their products and form contacts that can help with ongoing questions
as the organization moves forward.
* http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/detecting-a-red-shift-in-enterprise-software-development-278652181.html

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F O R M U L AT E T E C H N O L O G Y A N D B U S I N E S S D R I V E R S
After researching the market, organizations need to determine the business needs that drive the enterprise PaaS initiative. An
enterprise PaaS buyers guide is available to help establish the cost-benefit analysis of enterprise PaaS. Once the organization
reviews the buyers guide, it should form a cloud-focused team that can collect and define the companys technology criteria. To
aid the enterprise cloud team, an enterprise PaaS RFP template and scorecard are available to help scope evaluation criteria:
GU IDA N CE D OCUMEN TATI ON

T H E O R GA NIZ AT IO NS B U Y ING S TAGE

Buyers Guide: Enterprise Platform as a Service

Early Stage

Gartner Research

Mid-Stage

RFP template

Mid- to Advanced Stage

Evaluation Criteria Scorecard

Mid- to Advanced Stage

R U N A P R E L I M I N A R Y T E S T O F E N T E R P R I S E PA A S
In parallel with efforts to define the business requirements and evaluation criteria, organizations need to begin trials of enterprise
PaaS platforms to gain a high-level understanding of the solution. A full Proof of Concept (POC) is needed to properly assess the
technology, but an initial hands-on experience provides a valuable first impression.
VE ND OR

F R E E D OWNLOA D

Apprenda in Public IaaS

(Azure or AWS Instances Required)

http://apprenda.com/open-demos/apprenda-in-microsoft-azure/
http://apprenda.com/open-demos/apprenda-in-aws/

Apprenda On Premise

http://apprenda.com/open-demos/apprenda-express-on-premises-download/

Pivotal CF
(VMware License Required)

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=pivotal-cf

Red Hat OpenShift

(non-OpenShift Red Hat Licenses Required)

https://install.openshift.com/

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C O N D U C T A P R O O F O F C O N C E P T ( P O C ): RFP Template / Scorecard

It is essential that organizations run full-scale pilots of the PaaS software to make sure it actually meets technology requirements.
This process ensures the product can be installed on premise and integrates with critical existing technologies such as identity
management, databases, current apps, and operating system images.
The POC pilot should be confined to less than a month, including an installation of the product, and should entail the vendors
coming on site to smooth the installation process. There also should be clear criteria for judging successful outcomes, such as
pushing an app to the platform.
After the POC, some organizations solicit RFPs or scorecards. A purchasing decision is often done without formal RFPs or
scorecards, but it is not advised to move forward without a POC since the evaluation criteria in RFPs and scorecards can be
open to interpretation, while technology outcomes cannot. Enterprises should be sure to evaluate dependencies on APIs and
also dependencies the enterprise PaaS has up and down the technology stack. Switching enterprise PaaS vendors may be near to
impossible if there is a reliance on another essential technology by the vendor somewhere else in the stack.

S TA R T A R R A N G I N G S E R V I C E S A N D L I C E N S E P R O C U R E M E N T
After a technology evaluation and PaaS comparison, the typical vendor procurement procedures should commence with the
winner(s)there are often two (rather than one) enterprise PaaS services. It is crucial to define goals when scoping the services on
apps that will be on-boarded for a given timeframee.g., 20 apps on the platform in the first six monthsand when scoping the
existing tech that the PaaS will integrate withe.g., Active Directory.
The winning enterprise PaaSes should have a workflow that can guarantee success in migrating any number of applications to the
platform within a timeline defined by the end-user. Thus, a successful PaaS comparison comes to a close with the selection and
implementation of one or two enterprise PaaSes.

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FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF

If you are interested in finding out more about Apprendas Private Platform as a Service, the best way is to experience it for yourself.
Apprenda offers three simple ways to do this:
1. Sign up for the monthly Open Demo webinar
2. Download Apprenda Express to explore the free version of the platform
3. Arrange a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) for your organization
All three can be accessed by visiting the Apprenda website or contacting us.

Apprenda Platform
ENHANCED:

.N E T C L R

J AVA

TO M C AT

IIS

SQL SERVER

Windows / Linux

P R I VAT E

OpenStack

HYBRID

PUBLIC

Azure IaaS

CloudStack

AWS EC2

Hyper-V/VMware

Any Cloud

Bare Metal

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Apprenda, Inc.
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Troy NY 12180
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