Cloud Computing: Cloud Foundry vs Google App Engine
May 1, 2012PaaS is nothing but uploading your small kernel of code with business logic and the PaaS service provider will run that code on allocated computing and storage instances. The aim of PaaS is to let the developers concentrate on developing their code rather than creating and maintaining their ecosystem required for it. When Google launched App Engine in 2008 it had very basic functionalities but gradually it has evolved to support much good functionality like Channel APIs.
But when it comes to language support, selection of cloud, selection of database, control over database, Cloud foundry gives great amount of flexibility as compared to App Engine. Also, when it comes to supporting Java packages also, Google App Engine doesn’t allow developers to free their arms as there are quite a few important packages which are still not part of App Engine’s white list…
It’s been a year now that Cloud Foundry has been launched. Making it Open Source was a masterstroke from VMware. When it entered in April, it was supporting Java Spring, Ruby on Rails and Node.js but now it has expanded its capacity to support PHP, .NET, Perl, Erlang, Scala and Clojure. Like this we can compare Google App Engine and Cloud Foundry in various aspects and depending on specifications, one should choose the best suited for his/her requirement.
Here is a matrix of comparative study between Google App Engine and Cloud Foundry.
Dimension |
Google App Engine |
CloudFoundry.com |
Supported Languages/ Frameworks |
Java and Python |
Spring , Ruby Framework Rails & Sinatra , Node.js, PHP, .NET, Perl, Erlang, Scala and Clojure |
Requirement of Specific SDK. |
Yes –appengine-sdk |
No. |
Selection of Database |
Cannot select. As its Big Table Database by default. |
Yes. |
Monitoring |
• Has a separate dashboard to monitor the application. |
• Monitoring is provided within development IDE only. e.g. STS / Eclipse
|
Billing |
Detailed billing info.is available. |
Billing details are yet to be provided as still in beta version. |
Account |
Any Google Account. |
Need to register yourself at cloudfoundry.com |
Application Name / URL |
You can specify the desired unmatched name for the application. And the URL will be : example.appspot.com |
Here your project in IDE will appear as name to be deployed. And the URL will be: example.cloudfoundry.com |
No. of Apps per Account |
10 |
Not Specified |
Not supported Java features |
• Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) |
Info NA. |
Versioning |
Supported |
Not supported. (Cannot keep track of all deployed versions as of now) |
Unit testing on local machine |
Supports as it creates Actual like environment on localhost |
Supported on local machine |
Migration of already existing application |
Not supported. |
Supported but not in beta version |
Disabling of Application |
Possible from Dashboard |
Possible form IDE. |
Is an open source? |
No |
Yes. |
Vendor Lock-In |
Yes |
NO |
Cloud Lock-In |
Yes |
NO |
Serialization of Session for each request |
Yes |
Not necessary |
Private Cloud or Multi-Cloud Facility |
Only Public cloud |
NO |