PaaS News Summary: December 2013

Highlights

1. SAP Open-Sources a Cloud Foundry Service Broker for Their HANA DB
2. Hangops Panel: Cloud Foundry, Stackato, Appcera, Github, Mozilla, and OpenShift
3. Dell’s Customers Will Get Access to CenturyLink’s Public Cloud Services
4. ActiveState Releases Stackato v3.0.1
5. Red Hat Releases OpenShift Enterprise 2 and OpenShift Origin 3, Updates OpenShift Online
6. Baidu to Use Docker Containers for Their Own PaaS
7. Microsoft Aims to Boost Azure Use with Cloud OS Network of Partners
8. CloudBees Now Supports Java EE 7
9. Engine Yard’s Early Access: Java EE 7, Postgre 9.3, Percona 5.6
10. An Improved Node.js Buildpack from Heroku
11. New PaaS Platforms: PLDT Cloud PaaS and SlapRunner

In detail

1. SAP Open-Sources a Cloud Foundry Service Broker for Their HANA DB

SAP contributed their HANA service broker to the Cloud Foundry PaaS incubator. Swisscom has already deployed this new broker to their infrastructure—along with SAP HANA DB and Cloud Foundry. Other large vendors also demonstrate their interest in Cloud Foundry:  NTT officially signed the community contributor license agreement on Dec 23.

2. Hangops Panel: Cloud Foundry, Stackato, Appcera, GitHub, Mozilla, and OpenShift

A hangops panel featuring Platform-as-a-Service industry leaders, such as Cloud Foundry, Stackato, Appcera, GitHub, Mozilla, and OpenShift, was held on Dec 6. Instead of competitor wars, the friendly discussion focused on the notion of PaaS, the state of the ecosystem, and the benefits PaaS provides for system administrators and developers.

3. Dell’s Customers Will Access CenturyLink’s Public Cloud Services

Thanks to the new partnership, Dell customers will get access to CenturyLink’s public cloud services (compute, storage, and networking) via a web services API and in the unified management interface. Automation and orchestration features, as well as a PaaS based on Cloud Foundry and Iron Foundry, will also be available.

4. ActiveState Releases Stackato v3.0.1

ActiveState released the third version of their private enterprise PaaS based on the updated Cloud Foundry v2. It features Docker containers, native APIs for OpenStack auto-scaling, updated runtimes and services (including PHP 5.5, Ruby 2.0, and RabbitMQ 3.1/2.8), etc.

5. Red Hat Releases OpenShift Enterprise 2 and OpenShift Origin 3, Updates OpenShift Online

This December was marked by several releases from Red Hat: OpenShift Enterprise 2, OpenShift Origin 3, and a new version of OpenShift Online. Read the official release notes for more.

6. Baidu to Use Docker Containers for Their Own PaaS

Baidu, a popular Chinese search engine, has announced that it will use Docker containers for the upcoming Baidu App Engine 2.0. With this addition, the provider plans to move away from a sandbox-based PaaS to a container-based one.

7. Microsoft Aims to Boost Azure Use with Cloud OS Network of Partners

25 cloud service providers joined Microsoft’s recently introduced Cloud OS Network to deliver hosted services built on the Microsoft Cloud Platform. Members of the network will standardize on Windows Server with Hyper-V, System Center, and the Windows Azure Pack. In December, Microsoft also announced Read-Access Geo Redundant Storage for Windows Azue, which will access a remote secondary replica in case the primary storage becomes unavailable.

8. CloudBees Now Supports Java EE 7

CloudBees announced support for WildFly 8, the latest version of the JBoss open-source application server, giving developers access to Java EE 7, the latest Java distribution.

9. Engine Yard’s Early Access: Java EE 7, Postgre 9.3, and Percona 5.6

Engine Yard invites to try their new Java EE 7 stack, PostgreSQL 9.3, and Percona MySQL 5.6 in early access. The platform now also supports Amazon’s C3 instances for CPU-bound apps and AWS dedicated instances for HIPAA-compliant environments.

10. An Improved Node.js Buildpack from Heroku

Heroku updated their Node.js buildpack. Using build cache, it provides faster deployments, supports more versions of Node.js, allows for custom registry support, etc.

11. New PaaS Platforms: PLDT Cloud PaaS and SlapRunner

During December, two new PaaS systems appeared. PLDT Alpha Enterprise unveiled PLDT Cloud PaaS, while France-based ViFiB launched SlapRunner powered by SlapOS.

 
More to come: On Jan 7, 2014, Gartner released Magic Quadrant for Enterprise PaaS; CenturyLink to Use BOSH for Public Clouds; the PaaS market to grow to $6.94 billion by 2018; etc. Track these and other PaaS updates on our blog or follow @altoros.