Salesforce on Jan. 26 launched a newly architected enterprise version of its Heroku application development platform, which Salesforce customers use to build their own customer and partner-facing apps and deploy in the company’s App Cloud.
Heroku Enterprise was announced last September at the company’s DreamForce conference in San Francisco and has been in beta mode until now. The original Heroku platform-as-a-service (PaaS) is aimed at individual software developers, not necessarily at enterprise teams.
Heroku Enterprise’s key new features—Private Spaces, Global Regions and Integrated Identity—involve upgraded application agility, accessibility, security and collaboration functionality.
Enterprises using Private Spaces now can improve corporate networks to take better advantage of the cloud by running apps in a secure, private space with direct access to Salesforce’s infrastructure, the company said.
Global Regions enables deployment flexibility for cloud administrators. With the ability to run apps and workloads in data centers closer to the customer, IT managers can now ensure faster response times and improved latency. This is important for users when it comes to service-level agreements.
For developers and administrators who already manage Salesforce deployments, Integrated Identity enables seamless single sign-on (SSO) into Heroku Enterprise. With provisioning applied across both Salesforce CRM and custom apps, IT now only has to manage one set of log-ins.
“Heroku is one of the pillars of the Salesforce App Cloud; it’s become a central part of how Salesforce’s customers are building connections and applications to their customers,” Brian Goldfarb, Salesforce senior vice president of App Cloud marketing, told eWEEK.
“Our mission with App Cloud is to give everyone, from citizen developers to CIOs, the tools to deliver modern and innovative customer experiences. Heroku Enterprise is a key part of how we enable that.”
Goldfarb said that since Salesforce launched the App Cloud in 2015, it has seen a number of its customers growing their businesses “by creating a superior customer experience through digital technology. Apartment List has saved renters time and money through an elegant, multi-device app experience. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines engaged fliers through social and mobile tools they already use.”
Since then, Goldfarb said, “the Age of the Customer has exploded—with businesses of all sizes racing to build and deliver elegant, unified and digital customer experiences once only seen from the Ubers of the world.”
For a deeper look into the features of Heroku Enterprise, go here.
Salesforce is hosting a webinar on Heroku Enterprise Feb. 18 at 9 a.m. PT/noon ET. Go here to register.