Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is gaining serious traction among web and mobile developers, but as new PaaS providers emerge and existing vendors upgrade their features, its hard to keep track of what PaaS has to offer. This thorough introduction takes you through the PaaS model from a developers point of view, and breaks down the types of services that Google App Engine, Windows Azure, Heroku, Cloud Foundry, and others deliver.Whether youre an entrepreneur or part of a large enterprise development team, this book shows you how PaaS can help you focus on innovative applications, rather than spend your time worrying about technical operations.Track the clouds evolution from IaaS and DevOps to PaaSLearn how PaaS combines the simplicity of shared web hosting with the control of dedicated hostingExplore the benefits of both portable and non-portable PaaS optionsApply best practices for moving legacy apps to PaaSand understand the challenges involvedWrite new applications for PaaS from scratch with RESTful meta-servicesUse PaaS to build mobile apps with backend services that scaleExamine the core services that each major provider currently offersLearn the situations in which PaaS might not be advantageous.