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OMEN
10-21-2010, 05:27 PM
InfoWorld - IBM and VMware this week detailed efforts to boost development of software via the cloud computing paradigm.

IBM is expanding its cloud services for software development and testing, improving capabilities for application planning and load testing.
Improvements are being made to the Smart Business Development & Test on the IBM Cloud, a cloud software development and testing platform announced in March. Among the improvements is the addition of Windows application development support for Windows 2003 and 2008 Data Center Editions; previously, only Linux and Java development were enabled.

"What we've done is reduced the complexity to build apps for the cloud," said David Locke, IBM director of marketing for Rational.

Deployment and planning capabilities added to the cloud platform enable developers to graphically lay out an application deployment plan, via IBM Deployment Planning and Automation. Application deployment has been automated, with developers able to take a visual application plan and deploy the software onto the cloud.

For load testing, IBM is offering a preview of IBM Rational Load Testing on the IBM Cloud, for testers using IBM Rational Performance Tester to provision virtual test agents and generate virtual users.

IBM Global Business Services is introducing two testing services for the cloud platform, for virtualization and performance testing.

With the virtualization service, IBM will help customers move existing workloads onto the cloud. Performance testing services include utility-based testing for on-demand performance testing. The service identifies defects early in the development cycle, IBM said.

VMware this week announced a suite of cloud-based development and collaboration tools intended to simplify the application development process, called Code2Cloud.

Developed with Tasktop Technologies and initially intended for Java development, Code2Cloud enables developers to focus on business logic and writing code by removing the distractions of configuring development environments and setting up code repositories, VMWare said.

Featured is a set of development tools that will run in the cloud, providing capabilities such as issue-tracking and source code repository hosting, said Rod Johnson, senior vice president of the cloud application platform division at VMware.

"The aim is that it is very tightly integrated with SpringSource Tool Suite and it will provide developers with a turnkey solution to rapidly build applications and deploy them to a variety of clouds," Johnson said.

A technology preview of Code2Cloud is being offered this week at the SpringOne 2GX developer conference in Chicago. A developer preview is anticipated later this year or early in 2011.Johnson, founder of the Spring Framework for Java development, also said the Spring model is to be extended to address non-relational database access, support different types of mobile devices and accommodate social media.

"We're seeing more and more customers developing these kinds of modern applications that really work in a much more collaborative fashion with social media [and] need to support iPhones, iPads, and Android devices," Johnson said.