AWS is making it easier to build apps on the company's cloud
Amazon Web Services released some pretty nifty new features to its cloud this week including a new event-driven computing platform named Lambda and Auora, a MySQL-style relational database with mind-boggling scale.
And if Amazon.com CTO Werner Vogels had one message for the 13,500 attendees of AWS re:Invent, it is that there is no reason that they can’t build apps just like those themselves. A major theme of AWS re:lnvent 2014 is about making it easier to build and manage applications on the company’s cloud platform.
@AWSreInventOn Day 1 of the company’s keynotes, SVP Andy Jassy announced AWS Config, AWS CodePipeline and AWS Code Deploy, a set of tools for managing code that new applications are built out of. On Day 2 Vogels announced the EC2 Container Service, which makes it much easier to launch and manage Docker containers, which are increasingly becoming a building block of new apps.
Vogels made a ppoint that both Lamdba and Auora were built using existing AWS tools like EC2, DynamoDB and S3. “Go build now. Please!” were Vogels last words as he exited the stage of his keynote address.
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AWS has long been considred the market leader in the IaaS market. But increasingly, it’s starting to feel like a PaaS (platform as a service), which is an application development cloud. AWS executives are reluctant to calls AWS a PaaS, saying that the term is “overloaded.” But it’s clear AWS wants to make it easier to build apps on its cloud. The trifecta of announcements: AWS Code Deploy, Pipeline and Code Commit are all considered application lifecycle management tools.
Code Deploy lets users automate the deployment of applications on the company’s EC2 virtual machines. This allows new features of apps to be rolled out quickly, for example. AWS CodeCommit is all about hosting private repositories of code that has been developed. It integrates with Git to do that. And CodePipeline is a continuous deliver platform allowing developers to check code in, build code and release the code to production.
Perhaps the biggest trend in developer circles today is the use of containers. AWS also released a new EC2 Container Management service which integrates with Docker and allows containers to be managed at scale – from a handful to thousands. The service automatically schedules the creation of containers, scales them up and spins them down when the job is completed.
Two of AWS’s biggest competitors, Microsoft and Google each have very straightforward app development products in their platform as a service (PaaS) offerings. For Microsoft, Azure began as a PaaS, primarily for new .Net apps. Google has Application Engine, which is a PaaS as well.
Amazon is now looking to make a play in this market too, capturing the heart sand minds of developers who are building new apps.
