Development of the "Platform as a Service" Ecosystem in Indonesia

As the world is increasingly dominated by software, the development of applications and tools is also getting bigger and more complex. This affects the workload of the developers or developer which is also more and more when managing an application. Platform as a Service or PaaS is one of the services offered by cloud computing or cloud computing Besides Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) which focuses on helping developers in managing applications.

Platform as a service (PaaS) provides components cloud in the form of a platform that users can use to create applications on it. This service makes it easy for customers to develop, run, and manage applications without the complexities of building and maintaining the infrastructure associated with developing and deploying applications.

According to the presentation Microsoft Azure, there are several scenarios of using PaaS services, such as providing a framework that developers can build on to develop or customize cloud-based applications; provides tools that make it easier for organizations to conduct analysis or make business decisions. Also as a support service for application management.

Using this service can reduce costs and save time in managing software licenses, application infrastructure and middleware, container orchestrations such as Kubernetes, or other development tools and resources. Developers do not need to do resource management supporting the development of the applications they develop, because everything has been provided by this service.

In Indonesia, PaaS services are commonly used for managing microservices or microservices in applications. The microservices architecture makes applications more scalable and faster to expand, enabling innovation and accelerating market penetration for new features.

PaaS Ecosystem in Indonesia

Chairman of the Indonesian Cloud Computing Association (ACCI) Alex Budiyanto said, ecosystem development cloud computing in Indonesia departed from IaaS, which is basically the infrastructure foundation of PaaS and Software as a Service (SaaS) services.

He said that in Indonesia itself, there are not many local players who focus on exploring the entire line of PaaS business. However, some players have already developed a solution cloud computing started offering products from this PaaS service. Two of them are Datacomm and Lintasarta.

Established on 8 Oct 2015, Datacomm Cloud Business (DCB) is a business division of PT Datacomm Diangraha that focuses on opportunities cloud in Indonesia. In early 2021, Datacomm has just launched a new PaaS product based on Kubernetes. This technology is believed to be able to make companies more agile in responding to technological challenges, especially in making application systems.

Datacomm representatives said that PaaS services have great potential, because in order to compete with other companies in the internet sector, companies must be faster. PaaS provides the possibility for faster and more manageable development.

PaaS itself is high-scalability or have high scalability where when the activity in the application starts to get crowded, this service will automatically scale the application to better serve users. This makes the target market of PaaS itself is a company that requires 24/7 service and has solid activity in its application.

Lintasarta's Senior Manager of Cloud Product Development Reski Rukmantiyo said, "I see a fairly large adoption of PaaS products in areas that are closely related to B2C such as the financial banking or insurance industry that requires connections and services. workloads high, besides that it's also a telco."

As one of the first internet pioneers in Indonesia, Lintasarta, a subsidiary of PT Indosat Tbk, focuses on providing corporate solutions involving Data Communication, Internet and IT Services. His team claims to already offer the product from the service PaaS container based since two years ago.

In providing PaaS services, the two companies above work closely with RedHat - OpenShift, one of the global PaaS service providers that offers various options for developers consisting of hosting, private PaaS projects or open source.

Competition with hyper-scale players

Looking at the competition for PaaS services in Indonesia, currently it is still dominated by global players or hyperscale. Apart from the fact that no local player has yet offered a full-fledged PaaS solution, developers also tend to opt for solutions that have a large scope and are customizable.

Company hyper-scale identical with high-availability because it has many data centers scattered in various parts of the world. This makes it possible for the server to downtime small, it becomes one of the advantages of global players.

Datacomm Consultant Engineer Kevin Haryono said, "As a local player, what we can rely on is services that comply with the recommendations of the Ministry of Communication and Information, where all crucial data is mandatory. Regarding security, local data centers have also sought ISO certification and are trying to achieve international standards."

"Global players also have competitive prices and people's belief that solutions that come from outside are better native, when the developer is used to using one of the solutions then offered by outsiders according to the custom here," he added.

Regarding competition, Alex closed the discussion by saying, "We need to encourage people's love for domestic products, besides that local products must also improve the quality of their services so that they can be sustainable. head-to-head without public trust everything will be difficult."