We first discussed Salesforce.com in Chapter 3. In late 2009, VMware acquired SpringSource, “. . . bringing VMware one of the most popular Java development frameworks, stewardship of the Apache Tomcat, Apache HTTP Server, Hyperic, Groovy, and Grails open source communities, as well as a group of engineers focused on the efficient development of applica- tions for the cloud-computing era.”9 More recently, VMware acquired Rab- bit Technologies, the company behind the popular open source cloud messaging technology RabbitMQ. These products, with others promised
8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_Unit_Number
for the near future, are VMware’s “vCloud Developer Services” and “vCloud Platform Services”.
Salesforce.com and VMware have partnered to introduce VMforce—the first enterprise cloud for Java developers. With VMforce, Java developers can build apps that are instantly social and available on mobile devices in real time. And it’s all in the cloud, so there’s no hardware to manage and no software stack to install, patch, tune, or upgrade. Building Java apps on VMforce is easy!
Use the standard Spring Eclipse-based IDE
Code your app with standard Java, including POJOs, JSPs, and
Servlets
Deploy your app to VMforce with 1 click
Source:www.salesforce.com/vmforce/category.jsp
7.11 VMforce
The launch of VMforce is significant because it brings a mission critical deployment environment for enterprise Java apps in the cloud. Previ- ously, Java developers had limited environments to deploy applications in the cloud. VMforce aims to provide a cloud-based application plat- form to the 6 million enterprise Java developers, including the 2 million members of Spring community. The offering allows Java developers to tap into Salesforce’s Force.com application, which provides a cloud- based platform to run and operate business applications. Developers can access the Force.com database, workflow, analytics, search, andChatter profilesand feeds.
VMforce will use the Spring Framework. The SpringSource Tool Suite, will allow applications will run on the tc Server, the Enter- prise version of Apache Tomcat, and is optimized for virtual and cloud environments.
VMforce’s platform will allows developers to incorporate collaboration services from recently launched Chatter in their applications. These pre- built services include profiles, status updates, groups, feeds, document sharing, the Chatter API.
Since VMforce will run on the Force.com platform, developers have access to a host of other pre-built business services that can be configured into their apps without requiring any custom coding. These services
include search, identity and security, workflow, reporting and analytics, a robust web services integration API, mobile deployment, and more. Developers using VMforce will also be able to tap into Force.com’s rela- tional database, including automatic scalability, high availability, auto-tuning, back up and disaster recovery.
VMware’s vCloud technology will manage the Java stack that powers VMforce applications and the underlying vSphere virtualization platform.
Salesforce previously didn’t allow for Java-based applications to be deployed on the Force.com platform, says Ariel Kelman, VP of Prod- uct Marketing for Force.com. Kelman says the aim of VMforce is to bring a trusted cloud platform for the millions of Java developers and accelerate adoption of the new offering. While Amazon Web Services offers a Java platform for developers, says Kelman, VMforce manages many of the complexities for enterprise developers, such as analytics, search and more.
Source:http://www.techcrunchit.com/2010/04/27/salesforce-and- vmware-partner-to-launch-enterprise-java-cloud-platform-vmforce/
With VMforce, there’s no hardware to manage—and no software stack to install, patch, tune, or upgrade. Just drag and drop your Java app to VMforce to deploy. Java developers can add built-in collaboration, mobile, and analytics components to their apps. Similar to other cloud infrastructures, all apps on VMforce are elastic, so you never have to worry about scaling up app servers, databases, or infrastructure. Any enterprise with Java development resources and skillsets can now easily develop enterprise Java apps locally and then deploy them to the cloud. VMforce supports standard Java code, including POJOs, JSPs, and Servlets, along with the popular Spring Framework. With VMforce, you can also easily migrate existing enterprise Java apps to the cloud and avoid cloud lock-in.
Source: www.salesforce.com/vmforce/category.jsp
7.12 VMware and Google
VMware and Google are both known for springing (pun intended, as you’ll see) out of Gates Computer Science Building at Stanford University at around the same time. Both have grown enormously, and executives of both
companies stayed friendly. At some point, both companies realized that they shared similar visions of the cloud and similar passions for building great software to achieve this vision, including a shared vision to make it easy to build, run, and manage applications for the cloud, and to do so in a way that makes the applications portable across clouds. The rich applications should be able to run in an enterprise’s private cloud, on Google’s AppEngine, or on other public clouds committed to similar openness. 7.12.1 Spring for AppEngine
In May 2010, VMware committed to making Spring available as a language for Google App Engine and other cloud applications, even if that cloud, like Google’s App Engine cloud is not currently based on VMware vSphere, and VMware is accepting that. Developers must be able to write applications without needing to know what underlying technology powers the cloud that they’ll be deployed on. Furthermore, there are many use cases where portability between clouds makes great business sense. For example, they might want to develop and test their application on App Engine and then seamlessly move it to their own VMware-based private cloud for production execution. Or they might do it the other way around as well!10
Paul Maritz, VMware CEO, stated at the 2010 Google I/O Confer- ence, “VMware and Google are aligning to reassure our mutual customers and the Java community that choice and portability are of utmost impor- tance to both companies. We will work to ensure that modern applications can run smoothly within the firewalls of a company’s datacenter or out in the public cloud environment.” For its part, Google announced support for Spring Java apps on the (recently enhanced) Google App Engine. VMware and Google are working together to combine the speed of development of Spring Roo, a rapid application development tool, with the power of the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) to build rich browser apps. These GWT-pow- ered applications can leverage modern browser technologies such as AJAX and HTML5 to create a compelling end user experience on both smart phones and computers. In just one click, users of the new versions of SpringSource Tool Suite and Google Web Toolkit can deploy their applica- tion to Google App Engine for Business, a VMware environment or other infrastructure, such as Amazon EC2.
10. Adapted from http://blogs.vmware.com/console/2010/05/google-and-vmwares-open-paas- strategy.html.
7.12.2 Spring Insight and Google Speed Tracer
The two companies are also collaborating to more tightly integrate VMware’s Spring Insight performance tracing technology within the SpringSource tc Server application server with Google’s Speed Tracer tech- nology to enable end to end performance visibility of cloud applications built using Spring and Google Web Toolkit. Cloud-based SQL and SSL are also promised for delivery in 2010.11
eWeek reported, “Google App Engine for Business allows developers to use standards-based technology, such as Java, Python, the Eclipse IDE and Google Web Toolkit (GWT), to create applications that run on the plat- form. It also offers users dynamic scaling, consistent availability and flat- rate pricing.”12 The App Engine For Business Roadmap is maintained at
http://code.google.com/appengine/business/roadmap.html and is updated regularly.