Google brings out new version of App Engine


9 Apr 2009

To date more than 150,000 developers have built software using the Google App Engine, the search giant said yesterday at the launch of a new version of the engine.

The new software engine furthers Google’s goal of making its scalable infrastructure available to developers, from start-ups to enterprise IT departments.

Google worked in co-ordination with Oracle, IBM, Appirio, Cast Iron, Panorama, PivotLink, Sword Group, ThoughtWorks, Cloud Sherpas and PingIdentity on the launch of new gadgets and applications associated with the new Apps Engine.

The new version of Apps Engine features “cron support” to enable developers to automatically run and schedule jobs.

A new database import and export allows developers to batch transfer gigabytes of data into App Engine. Export capabilities will be available within the next month.

Enterprise developers also want the security of firewalled data and the ease of web app deployment, but applications in the cloud can’t generally access on-premise datastores.

To address this challenge, Google is also launching the Secure Data Connector, which enables centrally managed access to on-premise data from Google Apps, including App Engine- and gadget-based solutions.

Google is also giving developers an early look at App Engine’s support for the Java programming language. Limited to the first 10,000 sign-ups, this early look is intended to gather feedback from the Java developer community.

App Engine’s use of standard Java APIs and libraries enables developers to work with the Java tools and frameworks they’re already familiar with, and ensures the easy deployment of their Java code to all standard J2EE servlet containers, including IBM WebSphere, Tomcat and others.

App Engine’s early look at Java language support includes a Java runtime, integration with the new Google Web Toolkit 1.6, and a Google Plugin for Eclipse. Together these tools provide a unified development experience for writing AJAX applications in a single language, from client to server.

“In making Google’s infrastructure broadly available, App Engine has helped over 150,000 developers focus on designing and launching great products, without the usual scale and maintenance headaches,” said Andrew Bowers, product manager at Google.

“Today – with newly-launched features, and an early look at Java language support – we’re making Google App Engine a viable deployment option for more and more application developers.”

By John Kennedy