Google, VMware Push Spring for Java Cloud Development

CHICAGO – Google and VMware have come together to advance cloud computing with Java at the core of their efforts.

At the SpringOne 2GX developer conference here, VMware and Google announced the general availability of the first in a series of technology collaborations to make enterprise software developers more efficient at building, deploying and managing applications within any cloud environment on any device.

Google and VMware launched several collaborative projects that will be available in the next two weeks, including Spring Roo and Google Web Toolkit, Spring Insight and Google Speed Tracer, SpringSource Tool Suite and Google Plug-in for Eclipse.  

“Together, Google and VMware enable enterprises to develop and deploy rich Spring Java applications across multiple clouds and devices.” said Rod Johnson, senior vice president of the application platform division at VMware, in a statement. “Today we have reached an important milestone where these modern applications can run smoothly within the firewalls of a company’s production datacenter or in a trusted provider's cloud environment." 

The general availability of these projects represents the first in a series of technology collaborations to enhance cloud portability across multiple clouds and devices. The next collaboration projects will focus on even broader mobile application support and accessing data in the cloud, as demonstrated today by the ability to deploy a SQL-based Spring application on Google App Engine for Business, Google said.

“Developers are looking for faster ways to build and run great web applications, and businesses want platforms that are open and flexible,” said Vic Gundotra, Google vice president of developer platforms, also in a statement. “By making deployments of Spring Java applications on Google App Engine using Google Web Toolkit generally available, developers can deploy Java applications in production environments of their choice while leveraging rich web front-end across multiple devices.”

Brad Abrams. Google’s product manager for developer tools, said Google initially announced the collaboration between VMware and Spring at Google at the Google I/O conference in May of 2010, which was his first week on the job after moving to Google from Microsoft, where he held a similar position regarding .NET developer tooling.

“That was in May and here we are announcing that general availability is imminent,” Abrams said. “The pace of innovation is quick and we’re delivering several pieces. One of the first things we wanted to do is make sure Spring runs well on App Engine. This is important for our cloud strategy.”

Meanwhile, the Spring Roo tool can be used with the front end of Google Web Toolkit, Abrams said.

Abrams said the following projects will be generally available by early November:

·         Spring Roo and Google Web Toolkit - Spring Roo, a next generation rapid application development tool, combined with the power of the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) enable developers to build rich browser apps in enterprise production environments. These GWT powered applications leverage modern browser technologies such as AJAX and HTML5 to create the most compelling end user experience on both desktops and mobile browsers.

·         Spring Insight and Google Speed Tracer - Google’s Speed Tracer with VMware’s Spring Insight performance tracing technology, enable end to end performance visibility into cloud applications. This integration provides a holistic view into the web application performance, improving the end-user experience by optimizing the client side as well as the server side. 

·         SpringSource Tool Suite and Google Plugin for Eclipse - The integration of SpringSource Tool Suite version 2.5 and Google Plugin for Eclipse makes it easy for developers to build and maintain large scale, web-based, enterprise applications, putting tools that were previously only available when building desktop and server solutions in the hands of those building cutting edge web apps.

In an Oct. 20 blog post, Abrams said:

“Earlier this year at Google I/O, we announced a collaboration between Google and VMware focused on making it easy to build business-oriented, cloud portable web apps. We showed how businesses could use our integrated developer tools to build modern web apps that are “cloud ready” from the start, and can be deployed to any standard environment, including Google App Engine and on VMware vFabric on-premise solutions. Today we are happy to announce that these tools will be generally available within the next few weeks.”

In addition, Abrams wrote: “Moving forward, both teams are excited about the strides we can make in the mobile web app space. As it stands today, the current technology stack makes it possible to create optimized web apps targeted for the mobile browser. Longer term, we will be looking at incorporating mobile best practices, styled UIs, and HTML5 features such as app cache, local database storage, and geolocation to make the developer and end-user experience first class.”

Abrams told eWEEK that Google saw synergies between Google’s efforts and the efforts and directions of SpringSource’s development team early on and the companies just formed a bond.

Meanwhile, Abrams, who spent 13 years at Microsoft working on developer tools and developer/designer infrastructure, said he moved to Google because he felt a need to “try something new” and expand his horizons. With that as his launching point, Abrams is now supporting Google’s general mission around helping developers be more successful using Google technologies.

Abrams’ heritage is steeped in the Microsoft tradition of rabid support for its developer base and he hopes to help replicate that at Google.

“Google is absolutely building out a developer program, though we’re still fairly early in the process,” Abrams said. “Google is starting to get serious about developers.”