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Adobe Systems has announced the availability of Adobe LiveCycle ES Developer Express software, a full version of Adobe LiveCycle ES hosted in the Amazon Web Services cloud computing environment.
Mitch Nelson, director of marketing, Adobe’s Business Processes Business Unit, said that using the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) technologies, Adobe’s offering provides a virtual, self-contained development environment where enterprise developers can prototype, develop and test Adobe LiveCycle ES applications without needing to install and configure Adobe LiveCycle ES themselves.
“Within the LiveCycle world we have a developer community — the Adobe Enterprise Developer Program,” Nelson said. “And we’ve taken LiveCycle and installed it on the Amazon EC2 cloud and made that available to developers. You can now go to a portal called Developer Express and launch a good, clean copy of LiveCycle. And you can do all your development work on the cloud.”
As Adobe officials put it, with Adobe LiveCycle ES Developer Express, Adobe LiveCycle ES applications are pre-configured as ready to run server instances on the Amazon EC2 server. This can help reduce the time required to boot new server instances to minutes, allowing enterprise developers to quickly begin testing and modifying applications.
Moreover, developers can effectively bullet-proof their applications without having to invest in a development environment or test lab, said Raja Hammoud, Group Product Marketing Manager, Adobe’s Business Processes Business Unit. Old projects may be deleted or saved for future access and new projects can begin without any cleanup required from the last install, Hammoud said.
Adobe LiveCycle ES Developer Express is immediately available to all members of the Adobe Enterprise Developer Program. Nelson said Adobe LiveCycle ES Developer Express is available at no additional charge to Adobe’s enterprise developer program members.
In addition, Nelson said Adobe provides all the tools necessary for developers to better use LiveCycle ES. “We have a program called Designer and a system called Workbench that is Eclipse-based and helps you set up processes and makes sure everything works together,” he said.
Hammoud said Adobe launched its LiveCycle enterprise solution in 2004 to help enterprises automate their end-to-end business processes. “We take advantage of Adobe’s strengths to bring Rich Internet Application experiences to the enterprise,” she said.
Hammoud said Adobe LiveCycle ES is a server solution that combines data capture, information assurance, document output, process management and content services to help organizations in numerous industries create and deliver rich applications that reduce paperwork, accelerate decision-making, and help ensure regulatory compliance.
In addition, LiveCycle ES supports a variety of platforms, and draws on Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF) and the Adobe Reader and Flash technologies to help users create, review, update, manage, store and distribute documents all while engaging in dynamic business processes.
“We are excited to see Adobe extend to its customers the vast potential for unlocking productivity by providing access to enterprise-scale environments in the cloud,” said Adam Selipsky, vice president of product management and developer relations for Amazon Web Services, in a statement. “By offering developer access to its comprehensive LiveCycle ES solution via Amazon Web Services, Adobe continues to push the boundaries when supporting its enterprise developer community.”