What are the three basic types of cloud services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)? Give AWS examples of each.

Question

Accepted Answer

Cloud services are layered by how much of the stack the provider manages versus the customer. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) — raw compute, storage, network. You manage OS, runtime, app. AWS examples: EC2 , EBS , VPC . PaaS (Platform as a Service) — provider handles OS, runtime, scaling; you bring code. AWS examples: Elastic Beanstalk , App Runner , RDS . SaaS (Software as a Service) — finished application delivered over the internet. AWS examples: Amazon WorkMail , Amazon Chime , Amazon Connect . Trade-off: as you move from IaaS → PaaS → SaaS, you trade control for convenience. Serverless (Lambda) sits between PaaS and FaaS — no servers, just code. Memorize one AWS service per tier and the control-vs-convenience trade-off. Mention Lambda as FaaS to show you know the modern serverless layer above PaaS.