A screenshot of the Cloudfoundry.org site, the home for the Cloud Foundry community
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Virtualization and cloud computing software developer VMware (www.vmware.com) announced on Tuesday that it has released a new open source platform for building cloud-based application development environments, along the lines of Microsoft’s Windows Azure, or Google’s App Engine, in an apparent effort to create the standard service providers will use to create platform-as-a-service clouds that compete with those services.
VMware’s Cloud Foundry project, as the code base is called, was launched by the company today at a live event led by CEO Paul Maritz, and attended by thousands of developers, with a long list of speakers. VMware says Cloud Foundry is the company’s first ever major open source project.
“The shift to cloud computing is fundamentally transforming what businesses and consumers expect from applications, profoundly challenging traditional application development and infrastructure,” said Tod Nielsen, co-president, application platform at VMware, quoted in the company’s press release. “Cloud Foundry delivers a dramatically simplified approach that embraces the diversity and speed of modern development that is at the heart of today’s most successful applications while exploiting key trends in mobile, social and cloud computing.”
The services can be run on a public cloud, or a private cloud, built behind a firewall. They are designed to work with a broad range of programming languages, as well as other cloud services, including those built on VMware.
The Cloud Foundry’s code is available from GitHub, governed by an Apache 2 license. VMware has built a demonstration Cloud Foundry PaaS environment, currently in beta, at CloudFoundry.com, and a home for the Cloud Foundry community at CloudFoundry.org.
VMware says the distinguishing features of the Cloud Foundry platform include the fact that it is built to be “multi-cloud,” to work between private and public environments, and the fact that it is built to work with a wide variety of application frameworks and development tools.
The platform currently supports Java, Ruby on Rails, the Sinatra Ruby framework and Node.js, and connects to application services including the VMware-owned RabbitMQ and GemFire.
General opinion about the big PaaS clouds, particularly App Engine and Azure, is that their drawback is the requirement that developers work inside a particular environment. App Engine was built to use Python, but has since been expanded to include Java. Azure is primarily focused on Microsoft’s .NET framework, but the company is reportedly working on modules to support Python, Ruby, PHP and others.
One of Cloud Foundry’s design goals, suggests VMware, was broad enough support to make it possible for developers to move their applications to Cloud Foundry environments from other PaaS clouds.
While Microsoft has made it possible for service providers to offer Azure from their own data centers with its Azure Appliance, it seems that VMware’s Cloud Foundry – given the widespread adoption of the company’s software in data center environments – stands a good chance of becoming the standard VMware intends it to be for building PaaS clouds.
About Liam Eagle
Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements. Follow him on Twitter @liameagle
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