VMware Partners Uhuru, Tier 3 Take .NET to the Cloud

VMware's Cloud Foundry is now open to .NET developers in more than one way.

Dubbed an open Platform as a Service (PAAS), VMware's Cloud Foundry supported Java, Ruby, Erlang and other platforms, but lacked support for .NET. Now, in less than a week, there are two options for developers to take .NET applications to the cloud via Cloud Foundry.

On Dec. 13, Tier 3 announced Iron Foundry, a .NET Framework implementation of VMware's Cloud Foundry. On Dec. 15, Redmond, Wash.-based startup Uhuru Software came out of stealth mode to announce Uhuru .NET Services for Cloud Foundry.

Jawad Khaki, co-founder and CEO of Uhuru told eWEEK Uhuru's product provides native Microsoft .NET extensions to Cloud Foundry and differs from the Tier 3 solution in that way. Uhuru .NET Services for Cloud Foundry allows .NET developers and Windows IT managers to deploy and scale .NET applications with Cloud Foundry using the Windows tools they're used to. Uhuru is contributing source code under the Apache 2 license.

Uhuru is committed to delivering quality tools that meet the needs of Windows and .NET developers and IT managers. As an open source offering, Uhuru .NET Services for Cloud Foundry will benefit from the input and contributions of open source community members. "We're looking forward to getting input from the community and expect community contributions to shape the direction of the product," Khaki said.

Uhuru .NET Services for Cloud Foundry, an open source offering, now makes it possible for developers of Windows .NET applications to take advantage of the management and deployment simplicity offered through Cloud Foundry. Previously, Cloud Foundry supported only open source development environments such as Spring for Java and Ruby on Rails. Now, by taking advantage of Uhuru .NET Services for Cloud Foundry, .NET developers can focus on building great applications rather than worry about how to deploy their software on specific cloud services, or how to scale their applications to handle large workloads, Khaki said.

"Cloud Foundry, until we came out, did not have a way to manage Windows machines," Khaki said. He said the Cloud Foundry implementation was on Linux and written in Ruby. "So we had to take that code out, use the protocols and do a native implementation in C# for Windows," he said. "We also did the work to tie in the Windows Server wiring to the SQL Server database. We also did all the plug-ins necessary to support Visual Studio and Microsoft Management Console."

Khaki, a native of Tanzania, said Uhuru is Swahili for freedom. "We named the company Uhuru because we believe developers should be free to write in any language or framework; and IT staff should be able to deploy apps wherever they want," he said.

"Cloud Foundry has changed the way developers and IT managers think about developing and deploying software for hosting in the cloud. It virtually eliminates the customization and deployment work they needed to do," Khaki said in a statement. "Uhuru .NET Services for Cloud Foundry brings this same simplicity to .NET applications. With .NET Services for Cloud Foundry, .NET developers can use the tools they are already familiar with, like Visual Studio and Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-ins, and still quickly deploy software they write to whichever cloud service they wish to use."

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