One of the issues that enterprise IT organizations have with any platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering is that moving application workloads between their internal systems and the PaaS environment can be both complicated and cumbersome. As a result, the PaaS environment winds up introducing a lot of DevOps issues that lead many organizations to conclude that PaaS is more trouble than it’s worth.
To address that specific issue, the folks at Apprenda, a provider of a PaaS offering that is compatible with Microsoft’s Azure cloud service, today at the CloudBeat 2012 conference released a version 4.0 upgrade of its namesake PaaS offering that automates most of the tasks associated with moving Microsoft.NET application workloads between environments via the console that comes with Microsoft Windows Server 2012.
According to Rakesh Malhotra, vice president of product management for Apprenda, IT organizations using Apprenda 4.0 can now simply set policies via Microsoft Windows Server 2012 to define what application workloads will run where and when. Once those policies are defined, Apprenda 4.0 now allows them to execute those policies using a single click.
While PaaS has been slow to gain traction in the enterprise, as a technology, it essentially takes the management of application development and deployment to a higher level. Rather than relying solely on application servers, the PaaS environment automates the development and deployment of applications at a much higher level of abstraction. In effect, Malhotra says this approach takes all the friction out of the application deployment process, which he says Apprenda can now apply across hybrid cloud computing environments.
There’s no doubt we’re on the cusp of great change in terms of how applications are developed and deployed within the context of an enterprise IT environment that is rapidly being redefined in the age of the cloud. But before any of that vision becomes a reality, Malhotra contends that a lot of hard work associated with making it simple to do that has not been addressed by rival PaaS providers.
Arguably, history has shown us time and again that the vendor that tends to win most in the enterprise is the one that helps organizations find the path of least resistance. In the case of PaaS, that means making certain that moving to a new platform for developing and deploying applications is, at the very least, as simple, if not simpler, than the fractious process most IT organizations are already contending with today.
