Open source poster boy, Red Hat announced its vision for a
comprehensive Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution as part of its
Cloud Foundations, a portfolio that will promote consistency
between enterprise applications and the cloud. Red Hat says that it
is the only vendor that has the infrastructure capable of
delivering an open source, flexible cloud stack, incorporating
operating system, middleware and virtualization. Based on
JBoss Enterprise Middleware, Red Hat PaaS is designed to be the
solution within the portfolio that will allow enterprises, cloud
service providers, ISVs and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers
to take existing assets and develop new applications and deploy
them to a wide range of public and private clouds.
Red Hat plans to bring the JBoss Enterprise Middleware strategy
of Open Choice to the cloud through flexible deployment options in
addition to a choice of development frameworks and languages. Red
Hat's next-generation PaaS solution will be designed to simplify
the development of new simple web applications as well as complex,
transactional enterprise applications and integrate them into an
enterprise. Additionally, Red Hat PaaS is expected to offer
comprehensive reference architecture to enable existing
applications to be re-purposed within a wide choice of private and
public clouds, protecting existing investments. With Red Hat PaaS,
enterprises, cloud service providers, ISVs and SaaS providers will
have the opportunity to leverage their existing skills without
rewriting applications.
"Application infrastructure (middleware) is a key technology
layer in enterprise computing, and it is of equal role and
importance in cloud computing as well. To achieve the full cost,
agility, productivity and scale benefits of cloud computing,
applications must be deployed over a native cloud-enabled
application infrastructure. Mainstream organizations must prepare
to evaluate a full range of deployment options, including cloud,
when planning their future application infrastructure investments,"
aid Yefim Natis, vice president, Distinguished Analyst, Gartner,
Inc.