What type of service architecture allows customers to manage applications and data while the vendor takes care of the underlying infrastructure?

The correct answer is PaaS, or Platform as a Service. This service architecture provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the underlying infrastructure. With PaaS, the vendor manages the hardware and software layers, including servers, storage, networking, and middleware, enabling customers to focus on application development and data management. This makes it an ideal choice for developers who want to create applications quickly without worrying about the server or network management.

In contrast, IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) provides users with raw infrastructure resources such as virtual machines and storage, but requires them to manage everything above that layer, including operating systems and applications. SaaS (Software as a Service) offers complete software solutions hosted by the vendor, where users access applications via the internet, but they don’t have control over the underlying infrastructure. A hybrid cloud solution generally refers to a combination of on-premises infrastructure and cloud services, allowing for more flexibility but not focusing on the specific management of applications and data as PaaS does.