Aptana Cloud - our answer is Google App Engine and Amazon!

Not so long ago, the search giant Google provided developers with its application hosting platform - Google App Engine , which provides for the operation of custom applications in the company’s environment, based on their platform. The developer is completely exempt from working with the hosting itself - for him everything is visible through the prism of a simple API, the rest is Google's concern. In fact, this is a very high-level hosting virtualization. The network infrastructure is also transferred to the provider’s shoulders, so all applications work in a certain environment, and it’s not even clear (and not necessary) which server is physical or virtual. That is why this infrastructure is called cloud. There is enough competition on the market - for example, the most well-known and frequently used service, this is the infrastructure from Amazon , which includes several applications for storing and transmitting data (payment is made both for traffic and for processor time).

But in these sentences we are limited in the languages ​​used, for example, Google allows you to work only with Python, while often heard about the restrictions imposed by the platform and constrain developers (at least experienced). According to rumors (not yet confirmed), Google will provide additional options in the future in terms of the choice of development language, and everyone expects it to be either Ruby or PHP.

But the world is not limited only to these platforms (meaning, Google and Amazon). And one of these platforms is created literally before our eyes!
Experienced developers of AJAX applications, I think, know such a development environment as Aptana IDE , which I have already written about many times in a blog. Not so long ago, the company took a step towards server environments by introducing the world's first Jaxer server, which combines an environment for deploying and running AJAX applications and server-side JavaScript. But now the next logical step from the company is that it is developing an environment for Cloud Computing, preparing to provide a service for deploying applications in a cloud environment, while initially supporting both the beloved of all PHP and its own technology Jaxter. So far there is very little information about the upcoming platform, literally bits of advertising, and those who want to join at an early stage to test the beta version are invited to fill out a small questionnaire (which I have already done, I am waiting for an answer).
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What will this platform be? Let's try to figure it out.

Aptana Cloud is Elastic Application Cloud, a transparently scalable network infrastructure for deploying web applications. In conjunction with the server support, the appropriate tools will be added to the Aptana IDE development environment, from which you can directly deploy applications, manage available settings, debug and monitor your project. The environment, according to the statement, is ideal for developers of modern Web 2.0 projects, taking care of the scaling of the network and server infrastructure, leaving the developers only development and nothing more.

The environment provides a standard technology stack — Apache web server, MySQL database, and PHP programming language (AMP stack). Of course, its own server-side JavaScript technology will also be available initially, and since Aptana is a significant player in the market for Ruby developers, RubyOnRails is promised in the very near future.

The SVN system is used to manage the code, and based on the Aptana IDE flagship product, developers will be provided with a complete platform for developing, debugging, deploying and managing their own application in the Cloud environment.

As far as I understand from the description, it is declared that your applications will be able to use up to 95% of the server capacity of the 8-core servers that make up the cloud infrastructure, and up to 10 terabytes of traffic per month is provided for interaction with the outside world. Although, I think it will be the maximum tariff plans, which are likely to be available for money or on exclusive arrangements. And very few people may need such power, at least initially. While the service is in a private beta version and is being tested by a select circle of users, a free 30-day period will continue to be provided, and the prices for services will start from less than $ 1 a day, at least these figures were voiced by Kevin Hakman, Aptana Marketing Director.

By the way, along with the service, other tools will be supplied, for example, the built-in attendance analysis system based on Google Analytics, group work tools for development teams and flexible access control based on the role system, which is integrated with SVN.

Honestly, all this sounds not only tempting, but very tempting, and I am glad that another system will appear on the market that can compete with giants like Google or Amazon and provide its cloud-based environment to developers on popular PHP / AJAX platforms. . After all, the market has not yet had a similar offer for the LAMP platform, and I believe that such a focus will be a winning strategy for Apatana. They are the first again!