We said last week that “next week we’ll talk more about cloud services and how IaaS, PaaS and SaaS are changing the way SMB’s do business and stay ahead of the curve.” As promised, that’s what we are going to do.

Let’s jump right in. IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service. This is basically a subscription service that provides cloud-based data storage, networking and virtualization. It gives SMB’s an alternative to expensive on-site resources. You pay for what you need and only pay more as your business grows.

PaaS – Platform as a Service. PaaS is used mainly by software application developers. It provides the tools necessary for developers to concentrate on creating unique code instead of spending valuable time worrying about the development environment.

SaaS – Software as a Service. SaaS providers make software applications available to businesses over the internet. These cloud-based applications are easy to access from different devices and from multiple locations. They take care of all the necessary back end chores so an SMB doesn’t need an in-house IT specialist to worry about installation, configuration, updates and security on every computer in the office. It’s all taken care of in the cloud.

If your company uses Microsoft Office 365, you may already be familiar with SaaS. It is a subscription based application that resides in the cloud. It is software as a service. We use Google Apps at JitterWorks. Another example of SaaS.

There’s going to be a lot more aaS to come as the cloud becomes the standard in business computing. And we only scratched the surface with IaaS, PaaS and SaaS in this blog. We would encourage you to Google any of these terms to dig deeper into how impactful they can be for any SMB.

They take care of the stressful, day to day headaches that can give an in-house IT specialist nightmares. They give you more time to concentrate on your business and the bottom line.

What’s the catch? We don’t see any as far as these services are concerned. They’ll all tell you that all you need is a consistent, reliable Internet service and a web browser. Then sit back and let them do all the dirty work.

OK, there’s the red flag. “All you need is a consistent, reliable Internet service.” While Microsoft and Google are taking care of things in the cloud, you still need to take care of your network down here on earth. Otherwise, the cloud may as well be Jupiter. Uninhabitable and inaccessible by humans.

Microsoft is getting ready to add a D to the aaS revolution. We’ll talk about that next week. But if your business isn’t sure how reliable your network is, if you don’t have the data necessary to quickly identify and fix network problems, then you don’t have your data in the clouds, you have your head in the clouds.