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Zend project creates cloud application service portability


By David Worthington
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September 22, 2009 —  Zend Technologies has announced the formation of an open-source project called Simple API for Cloud Application Services that will enable developers to use common PHP applications' services in the cloud.

The project's primary goal, announced today, is to make it easier for developers to write applications that can take advantage of the cloud's high availability and scalability while having portability at the same time, said Zend cloud strategist Wil Sinclair.

GoGrid, IBM, Microsoft, Nirvanix, Rackspace and Zend are cofounders of the project, and they will be contributing adapters for their platforms' application services. The first Simple API deliverables will be available for document databases, file storage and simple queue services.

Amazon is relying on community support to build and maintain its adapters for its services, including SimpleDB, S3 and SQS, said Sinclair.

Kristof Kloeckner, CTO of IBM Cloud Computing, promised that the company will contribute adapters for future cloud service interfaces and data storage products. "The Simple Cloud API will enable developers to invoke cloud services in a common way across cloud providers. This can significantly reduce the costs for application development and provide customer choice," he said.

Microsoft is contributing its client libraries for Windows Azure as well as an adapter from the Simple cloud API to its client libraries. Adapters will be available for Windows Azure blobs, Windows Azure tables and Windows Azure queues.

The adapters will need to be updated when platforms change, Sinclair said. "I hope they understand the importance of backward compatibility. Developers want to be backward compatible."

Aside from industry contributions, the Simple API source code is available to the PHP community to work toward the final API, said Sinclair. He expects that the API will be available for production later this year.

While Simple API can help translate common functionality across application services, it does not establish a standard service interface.

"We don't want to stifle innovation for vendor value-add features," said Sinclair. "Developers can use the [Simple] cloud API for 80% of use cases, and then use the client library in the Zend framework to access vendor value-add features."

The API is a "nice idea," but "it would be better for the industry if vendors agreed to support [the] same service interface instead of supporting adapters," said Anne Thomas Manes, vice president and research director for Burton Group Application Platform Strategies. "Then we wouldn't need adapters."

She added that it might be too much to ask for competitors to agree to use the same interface.

"We found surprising industry interest—more interest than we could accommodate for this press release. Having Microsoft and IBM contribute to the effort validates the idea," said Sinclair.




Related Search Term(s): cloud computing, Zend


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