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To enhance its expertise in Node.js, Progress acquired Modulus, provider of a platform as a service (PaaS) for hosting, deploying, scaling and monitoring data-intensive, real-time applications using Node.js and MongoDB.
The Modulus Node.js and MongoDB cloud platform allows users to create real-time mobile, software-as-a-service (SaaS), social and big data apps that run across distributed devices and can seamlessly handle floods of data requests with built-in performance monitoring and analytics.
“With the addition of the Modulus platform to our technology lineup, we will now have the capabilities to support both the productivity and control language segments of the platform-as-a-service market,” said Christina Pizzella, a spokesperson for Progress, in a blog post.
The Modulus platform is offered as a hosted service and can also be deployed by enterprises in public, private and hybrid clouds as well as in an on-premises infrastructure.
Founded in 2012, Modulus has more than 450 customers of all sizes and is a leader in the Node.js community.
“Node.js can do a lot of things, including making application development much easier,” said Progress CTO Karen Tegan Padir in a blog post on the acquisition. “However, its most significant characteristic may be that while it is written in familiar JavaScript, the favorite language of the Web front-end, with Node.js you can now easily run JavaScript on the server—creating highly scalable network applications. This means that millions of developers who know JavaScript no longer need to learn a new language in order to create solutions for servers, and by extension, for enterprise functions.”
Meanwhile, in a blog post on joining forces with Progress, Charlie Key, CEO of Modulus, said, “We now have a much larger base of resources to build and support the Modulus platform. We’ve already grown the team by half a dozen people; stay tuned for posts introducing them. We’ve launched our updated branding today—there’s a touch of orange now. Maybe the most important change is that now, with Progress, we are pushing Node.js in the enterprise more than ever.”
“Designed for high scale applications, Node.js is growing explosively, and is making an impact on enterprise IT,” said James Governor, co-founder of industry analyst firm RedMonk, in a statement. “Progress is acquiring the Modulus PaaS as an on-ramp to reduce deployment and management hurdles associated with Node.js.”
Progress is committed to continuing and expanding Modulus’ contributions and role in the Node.js community. Node.js is designed for easily building high-performing, scalable network applications using the ubiquitous JavaScript programming language. MongoDB is the leading NoSQL database system and is designed for scalability, performance and high availability.
“JavaScript is everywhere, and Node is the rocket ship that has taken it out of the web browser and onto the server,” said Isaac Z. Schlueter, CEO at npm, in a statement. “Node’s killer feature is its active community of developers that use npm to create and share open source JavaScript modules. With Progress Software putting its weight behind this community, it means JavaScript can go to even more places.”
With the addition of the Modulus capabilities into its PaaS portfolio, Progress now offers a comprehensive set of cloud, mobile, hybrid and on-premises development, data and business rules technologies.
Phil Pead, president and CEO at Progress, said Node.js and MongoDB are increasingly at the core of the next generation of apps being developed by enterprises to better understand and interact with their customers. “The Modulus capabilities are a perfect complement to the Progress Pacific PaaS platform,” he said.
Key noted the “strong synergies” between the Modulus and Progress technologies. “Our teams share a PaaS vision and commitment to helping developers quickly and easily deploy, manage and scale their applications,” he said.
“Web development is in a period of dramatic change as apps now need to be more event driven than ever in order to provide the best user experience,” Padir said in a statement. “The Modulus Node.js and MongoDB cloud platform is the best solution for creating, deploying and monitoring these types of real-time connected apps and is part of an incredible, thriving open source community.”