14 DAY TRIAL // Cloud computing has a major disadvantage because inside the cloud itself, there are a lot of software and hardware products that normally have no business in interacting with each other. This problem has determined a group of major industry companies to unite in developing a common API that can access all major cloud platforms available. This project brought companies like Microsoft, Zend, IBM, Rackspace, GoGrid and Nirvanix together, which led to the birth of the Simple Cloud API.
This revolutionary API is aiming at building a common interface so applications in a cloud could easily access platforms like Windows Azure, Amazon Web Services, Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network and Rackspace Cloud Files.
The first goals of the API will be to provide a way for easy methods to queue processes in cloud applications from different platforms and vendors, to homogenize all file storage interfaces from various vendors and provide common document database capabilities.
“The Simple Cloud API combines the benefits of open source community processes with the active participation of the cloud vendors themselves,” said Andi Gutmans, CEO at Zend Technologies. “With early participation and support from industry leaders and the Zend Framework community, we anticipate that this important project will continue to grow, serving a wide range of application developers and businesses building modern Web applications for the cloud.”
Companies like Zend, Microsoft and Rackspace are contributing with cloud library adapters and with the official PHP client library found in some of their cloud products. Zend will also launch a new product with this unified API called Zend Cloud, which will provide adapters for file storage services (like Windows Azure blobs, Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network, Amazon S3 and Rackspace Cloud Files), document storage (like Windows Azure tables and Amazon SimpleDB) and queuing services (like Amazon SQS and Windows Azure queues).
“IBM will be contributing adapters for IBM’s cloud service interfaces, as well as adapters to IBM's data storage products, allowing developers to easily switch between public clouds, private clouds and traditional data center environments," revealed Dr. Kristof Kloeckner, CTO of IBM Cloud Computing.
Doug Hauger, General Manager for Microsoft Windows Azure, stated that “The Simple Cloud API is an example of Microsoft’s continued investment in the openness and interoperability of its platform. We’re excited to see how this project will foster adoption of cloud computing platforms by PHP developers and hope that many of these developers are encouraged to use Windows Azure.”
Community reviews and participation can be submitted via the Simple Cloud official website at this link.
