VMware wants to revolutionize PaaS market

April 14, 2011 | Author: Michael Stromann
VMware Cloud Foundry

We have already noted that PaaS (Platform as a Service) - is the future of cloud platforms. For now the PaaS market is dominated by Salesforce (Force.com), Microsoft (Windows Azure) and Google (Google App Engine). Recently Amazon also entered this space with AWS Elastic Beanstalk. Of course VMWare also has its own plans regarding this market. Like Amazon, VMWare still paid more attention to another cloud technology - IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). Its product vCloud enables service providers and enterprises to create cloud platforms that mimic Amazon EC2. But, frankly speaking, VMWare hasn't achieved great success in the IaaS-space so far, because it didn't offer something revolutionary. Having analyzed these mistakes, the company is now entering the PaaS market. And here it really wants to make a revolution.

Few days ago VMWare unveiled online service Cloud Foundry and the eponymous "portable" PaaS platform. The mane feature of this platform is that it's completely free and open-source. According to the developers, it can work anywhere - on a single server, in the enterprise data center, in a public cloud (e.g. Amazon or vCloud), as well as on several of these infrastructures, forming so-called "federated cloud." Thus, it's eliminating the main drawback of existing PaaS-solutions - locking to a single provider.

The second feature of Cloud Foundry - is its extensibility. For example, Google App Engine only supports Python and Java. Windows Azure - primarily designed for use with Microsoft's .NET framework. But VMWare Cloud Foundry initially supports Spring Java, Rails, Sinatra and Node.JS and allows you to integrate other frameworks. So the platform does not limit developers in their tools and infrastructure software. Moreover, for the convenience of developers, VMWare will soon release a micro version of Cloud Foundry, that can be installed on any PC.

It is also interesting that the Cloud Foundry will compete with a joint project of VMWare and Salesforce - VWForce (which is now a part of the Force.com). Probably now these two companies diverge and each will go its own way to the top of the PaaS-market.

See also: Top 10 Public Cloud Platforms

Author: Michael Stromann
Michael is an expert in IT Service Management, IT Security and software development. With his extensive experience as a software developer and active involvement in multiple ERP implementation projects, Michael brings a wealth of practical knowledge to his writings. Having previously worked at SAP, he has honed his expertise and gained a deep understanding of software development and implementation processes. Currently, as a freelance developer, Michael continues to contribute to the IT community by sharing his insights through guest articles published on several IT portals. You can contact Michael by email stromann@liventerprise.com