The business case for switching to a PaaS

Your organization is running multiple apps and websites. And it’s your job as a developer to keep all those sites running efficiently, securely, and predictably. Because a well-managed website fleet is good for business.

But fleet management can be a real time sink, especially when sites are designed by different teams or built from different frameworks or run on different hosting solutions. And the more time you spend on fleet management, the less time you have to spend on developing your organization’s core applications. That’s bad for business.

With only 24 hours in a day, how can you provide both the web fleet management and the core application development your company needs to succeed? Easy—with a FleetOps strategy powered by a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

With a FleetOps strategy, you shift all the responsibilities for building and maintaining your platform and its components to a PaaS. A PaaS provides centralized management and patching of all your apps, fully managed database services, and certified security and compliance. That frees up the time and resources you were spending on web fleet management so you can spend it on your core application development instead.

Help your boss help you

Now that you’ve discovered the secret to keeping the company running smoothly, how do you convince your boss to invest in a PaaS? Simple: by using the same six key metrics your boss’s job performance is measured by.

1. Site availability
2. Customer satisfaction scores
3. Problem resolution times
4. Security and compliance ratings
5. Productivity rate
6. Retention

Let’s take a look at those metrics to see how you can craft for each one a convincing argument that supports why a PaaS would be good for business, great for your boss, and even better for you.

1. Site availability

Keeping a site available is one of the easiest and most effective ways for your boss to show they’re on top of things. But the more sites your boss oversees, the trickier it is to cobble together the monitoring and maintenance resources to keep them all running. A PaaS provides a level of standardization that makes managing dozens of sites practically as easy as managing one.

2. Customer satisfaction scores

It’s a formula that’s never failed: a happy customer equals a happy boss. And the way to make a customer happy is to give them exactly what they want, exactly when they want it. A PaaS with a built-in CI/CD and instant cloning makes developing, testing, and implementing new functionality fast and efficient. You’ll be launching so many great features that your customers won’t have anything else to say but “I’m happy!”

3. Problem resolution times

All it takes to turn a customer smile into a frown is one pesky bug. And no matter how experienced your boss’s team of cloud engineers is, they may only see certain strains of bugs pop up once or twice a year, leaving them uncertain about the best methods for stamping it out. A PaaS team, however, manages cloud platforms for multiple customers across multiple industries. If a bug is out there, they’ve seen it, hunted it down, and taken it out many times over, decreasing time to resolution from hours or days to minutes. And the PaaS team is on the job around the clock. So your boss can sleep soundly on the weekends.

4. Security and compliance ratings

Whenever your boss looks at the news, there’s another alarming headline leaping out at them. “Cyberattack leaks data of thousands of customers!” “Company pays millions in GDPR fines!” Security and compliance are serious matters that carry serious consequences. One outdated application can create a serious vulnerability and cost your company its profits—and your boss their job. A PaaS removes the burden of security and compliance from your boss’s shoulders altogether. Monitoring, compliance, notifications: the PaaS has it all covered. So your boss can go back to reading the news without flinching.

5. Productivity rate

Ultimately, it all comes down to productivity. Getting things done is what makes a company—and your boss—successful. And getting things done these days means keeping up with the rapid pace of technology. The always up-to-date toolset that comes with a PaaS gives you the power and flexibility to tackle a project in the most efficient way possible. And with the PaaS handling all your fleet management chores, you’ll have more time to spend on the core application projects that are your company’s bread and butter.

6. Retention rate

With the development team equipped with both the time and tools to properly do their jobs, your boss won’t have to worry anymore about replacing team members tempted by greener pastures. Your pastures will be the greenest around. And your customers also won’t be going anywhere. Why should they? Your PaaS-powered FleetOps strategy is delivering exactly what they want, exactly when they want it.

So there you go. Six ways to prove to your boss that a PaaS is good for business. (And you don’t even have to mention that it will make your job a lot easier, too.)