Monthly Archives: September 2011

Cloud: editions

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Cloud computing according to Wikipedia is “the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network (typically the Internet).” Let’s say we agree on that definition. Next up is the distinction between private clouds and public clouds. Without wanting to spend too much time on definitions, the good news for QAFE developers and users is that QAFE runs on both.

 

QAFE works on private clouds, like the Oracle Exalogic machine (special QAFE-release for Exalogic is coming up), as smoothly as it does on public clouds, like Google App Engine. Both environments require specific changes within QAFE to work on them. As a result of which we introduced the concept of “Editions”.

 

Currently we have the Enterprise Edition that runs on any JEE5 compliant app server or web container implementation (like tomcat 7 or Jetty). Besides this Enterprise Edition we also provide the Google App Engine Edition (see previous post) which is tuned to work with App Engine and follows App Engine’s restrictions. 

 

So whatever your definition of cloud is, and whether you prefer to optimize for a public cloud or a private cloud, QAFE is ready for it.

 

Call +31 (0) 70 319 50 00 for details, or comment on this post if you want to find out more about QAFE’s Cloud Editions. Or dive in and see QAFE in action via http://registration.qafe.com

Go Cloud with Google App Engine

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One of the cool features of the new QAFE 1.4 release is Google App Engine Compatibility. Why is this cool, how did we do it, and what does this mean for you? Here are some answers:

 

First of all, according to us the Google App Engine Platform is one of the most advanced and reliable cloud service available for Java Web Applications. There are others of course, like the solutions from Amazon and the CloudFoundry from VMWare/Spring, but we particularly like Google App Engine because it is a complete solution including scalable storage and some really nice API’s (like the new Task API).

 

To be compatible to run on Google’s App Engine, typical webapplications meet some real challenges. The most striking is that App Engine follows the JEE spec quite closely. Specifically the Webcontainer specification. A Webcontainer implementation like Jetty or Tomcat allow you the write code which isn’t JEE compliant, for example, the log4j (which can be found in lots of Java webapplications) is a violation of the “write to disk” restriction of JEE specification. We needed to tackle a couple of these violations to get QAFE running on App Engine.

 

We managed and the result is that the QAFE Engine is now App Engine (>=1.5) compatible: so what does that mean for you?

 

The QAFE Engine now allows you to use Google’s Webtoolkit Technology without having to learn all the details about Google’s App Engine.  Writing Enterprise WebApplications is usually cumbersome and most of the times it’s boilerplate code (parsing request, etc). Whereas QAFE offers the quick and easy way to create Enterprise Applications that are instantly deployable.

 

You will be pleased to find out the QAFE engine scales very well. For example, when writing modern Webapplications the use of Javascript libraries is default. The more Javascript you write, the longer the download time becomes. In GWT Javacode is transformed to Javascript code, which is good, but for large applications the same goes: the Javascript needs to be downloaded (although, the GWT team already is doing a great job to improve this). The difference with the QAFE Engine is that QAFE stays the same size, no matter how many applications are deployed. So the use of memory space will grow, but not the engine size itself.

 

This keeps QAFE as a platform for writing Enterprise Applications, running on Google for Java Web Applications, a lean as can be; offering you all you need to get the job done faster, without the hassle.

 

With the increased chance that your business is moving to the cloud as well, this feature of the QAFE Engine should make you want to sign up for that Free Trial today.

QAFE 1.4 released!

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We are pleased to announce that the QAFE 1.4 version is released. This new version includes the brand new QAML Builder which helps you set up your environment even more quick and easy. Also, since integrates completely in the Eclipse environment, starting up a local QAFE instance is a piece of cake.

 

Simply fill out the form on http://registration.qafe.com to download the free trial. We’ll email you the license key right away!

 

Need some help?

Check out the instructions videos, which will give you a headstart in working with QAFE, helping you build your first QAFE application in a matter of minutes. You are also welcome to call for support – +31 (0)70 319 5000. Meantime we are working hard on some new tools and a new version of QAFE, which will be announced at the end of Q3 / beginning of Q4 2011. But forget about that -> download and use the enhanced QAFE Engine and the QAML Builder today, so that we know you’ll be back for more later!