SpringSource buys in Java cloud platform

Enterprise Java specialist SpringSource has unveiled a new platform for developers building applications for a cloud-based environment.

The news comes just a week after VMware announced its intention to acquire the firm in order to bolster its own cloud strategy.

Available immediately, SpringSource Cloud Foundry is based on the open-source Cloud Tools project, already used to deploy and manage Java Enterprise Edition applications on Amazon's EC2 cloud computing platform.

The technology itself has been acquired through SpringSource's purchase of Cloud Foundry the company, a move also announced today.

Cloud Foundry extends SpringSource's existing products to enable developers to build, deploy and scale up applications based on Spring, Grails and Java within a cloud environment.

The company also said that its freely available SpringSource Tool Suite will offer direct deployment of Java applications into public clouds through Cloud Foundry within the next 90 days.

In a posting on the SpringSource Team blog, chief executive Rod Johnson said that Cloud Foundry provides an easy-to-use self-service approach, enabling developers to deploy applications in minutes using a simple web interface.

While the current release supports only Amazon EC2 cloud infrastructure, Cloud Foundry will in future give developers a consistent experience over both public and on-premise clouds, according to the firm.

A key part of addressing this need will be implementing Cloud Foundry running on VMware's vSphere infrastructure, Johnson said.