In what is an unsurprising but still welcome move, the Cloud Foundry Foundation has launched a certification program for vendors using Cloud Foundry in their PaaS (platform as a service) products. Initial products certified include CenturyLink’s AppFog, HPE Helion Cloud Foundry, Huawei FusionStage, IBM Bluemix, Pivotal Cloud Foundry, SAP HANA Cloud Platform and Swisscom Application Cloud:
“Today’s news heralds the next era in cloud computing,” said Cloud Foundry CEO Sam Ramji. “In the first generation of cloud computing, companies sacrificed portability and choice for speed and cost-efficiency, tying themselves to a single cloud provider such as Amazon or Google. As we enter the second generation, businesses are committing to the cloud for the long term. As a consequence, they are demanding an industry standard in order to regain control of their applications and reduce complexity."
Gartner research reports the PaaS market crossed the $4 billion mark this year and Wikibon Research predicts it will grow to $68.3 billion by 2026.
Cloud Foundry Certification ensures the application and skill portability across any cloud service or on-premises software product that offers Cloud Foundry. It does this by ensuring all certified products are using the same core Cloud Foundry software. The Cloud Foundry Certification mark is only awarded to products and services that meet the strict technical requirements outlined by the foundation’s technical governing body. Products called “Cloud Foundry” can only use that designation after meeting Cloud Foundry Certification standards. Products must re-certify every year.
More than 50 member companies back Cloud Foundry, and they include not only software vendors but also the likes of Bloomberg, Verizon and General Electric. The group says Cloud Foundry is running in production at "thousands of organizations."
Companies using Cloud Foundry aren't required to be a member in order to get certified. The cost for certification is $50,000, however, members get a discounted rate of $30,000.
The Bottom Line
"Enterprises will built more software in the next 10 years than they have built in the last 25, and to do that they are looking for PaaS tools to assist in the process," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Holger Mueller. "On the large enterprise PaaS side, the clear front-runner at the moment is Cloud Foundry."
The platform got a major vote of support in recent days with Ford Motor Company's announcement of a three-year partnership with Pivotal to build applications on Cloud Foundry. As CIO reports, the deal isn't just about creating apps—it's about changing Ford's technical culture:
[The partnership] aims to help Ford's developers adopt extreme programming, an agile software development methodology that emphasizes pair programming, frequent releases in short development cycles and extensive code review.
There are four main questions CIOs and CTOs should consider when selecting a PaaS, Mueller says: "Is there a successful track record for the use case? Can I find the resources? What does it cost to procure? What lock-in do I expose myself to?"
The certification effort for Cloud Foundry is squarely aimed at answering fears over the last question.
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