This is a briefing note on Apprenda, a private PaaS player offering support for .NET and Java.

1. Briefing
Notes
-­‐
Apprenda
A
Briefing
Note
By
Krishnan
Subramanian
Briefing
Notes
-­‐
Apprenda
A
Briefing
Note
by
Krishnan
Subramanian
Company:
Apprenda
(www.apprenda.com)
Market:
Platform
as
a
Service
(PaaS)
Products:
Apprenda
PaaS
Summary:
Apprenda
is
one
of
the
early
private
PaaS
players
with
a
focus
on
best
of
breed
technology.
After
an
initial
focus
on
.NET,
Apprenda
is
diversifying
into
other
languages
with
the
Java
support
announcement
today.
Relying
on
the
enterprise
need
for
a
deeper
.NET
support
(and
now
Java),
they
have
gained
strong
traction
in
financial
and
biotech
sectors.
Today,
they
have
announced
that
J
P
Morgan
Chase
is
using
Apprenda
platform
for
their
mission
critical
needs.

2. Briefing
Notes
-­‐
Apprenda
A
Briefing
Note
By
Krishnan
Subramanian
Market
Overview
Platform
as
a
Service
(PaaS)
market
segment
is
still
in
its
early
stages
even
as
some
large
enterprises
are
embracing
PaaS
for
their
mission
critical
needs.
In
this
briefing
note,
we
are
going
to
focus
on
the
application
developer
platforms
and,
henceforth,
any
use
of
the
term
PaaS
in
this
note
refers
to
these
platform
services.
Even
though
PaaS
came
into
prominence
long
back
with
services
like
Google
App
Engine,
Heroku
and
Engine
Yard,
its
traction
in
the
enterprise
market
is
still
very
limited.
In
the
early
days,
biggest
traction
for
PaaS
was
from
individual
developers
and
startups
wanting
to
push
their
apps
directly
to
a
hosted
platform
in
order
to
avoid
any
investments
for
operations.
In
the
recent
years,
we
are
seeing
increased
traction
for
both
hosted
PaaS
as
well
as
private
PaaS
from
mid
market
to
large
enterprises.
The
increased
enterprise
adoption
of
PaaS
in
the
last
two
years
is
partly
due
to
the
availability
of
private
PaaS
offerings
and
also
due
to
the
fact
that
enterprise
IT
today
understands
the
value
of
such
platforms
including
keeping
rogue
IT
under
control.
In
spite
of
the
increased
interest
in
enterprise
PaaS,
the
adoption
is
still
pretty
slow.
However,
it
is
expected
to
accelerate
in
the
coming
years
with
the
maturity
of
PaaS
offerings
and
other
trends
like
reduced
enterprise
concerns
about
lock-­‐in,
security,
etc..
The
PaaS
segment
can
be
roughly
categorized
as:
• Hosted
PaaS
• Hybrid/Private
PaaS
with
infrastructure
abstraction
• Hybrid/Private
PaaS
with
tight
control
over
the
infrastructure
(DevOps
model)
We
have
Heroku,
Google
App
Engine,
Engine
Yard,
etc.
on
the
hosted
PaaS
category,
CloudFoundry
Variants,
WSO2,
Apprenda,
OpenShift,
etc.
on
the
second
category
and
offerings
like
Cloudify,
Brooklyn
Project,
etc.
for
the
DevOps
category.
For
a
comprehensive
coverage
of
the
PaaS
market
segment,
please
refer
to
our
upcoming
research
report
on
2nd
April
2013
at
Deploycon.
Apprenda
Overview
Apprenda’s
enterprise
cloud
platform
falls
into
the
private
PaaS
category
and
can
be
deployed
on
top
of
public
cloud,
private
cloud
or
hybrid
cloud.
Ever
since
its
launch,
Apprenda
has
been
focused
on
.NET
and
today
it
is
making
a
pivot
by
announcing
additional
support
for
Java.
Unlike
other
PaaS
providers
who
take
a
Polyglot
approach
to
supporting
multiple
languages,
Apprenda
takes
the
best
of
breed
approach.
Unlike
in
Polyglot,
where
all
languages
are
supported
inside
a
single
platform,
Apprenda
supports
multiple
platforms
for
different
languages
but
offers
a
seamless
single
pane
of
glass
for
managing
multiple
platforms.
Apprenda
Platform
is
a
highly
available
and
extensible
platform
with
complete
support
for
Application
Lifecycle
Management.
In
the
recently
announced
Version
4.0
of
their
platform,
they
have
added
support
for
Hybrid
Cloud,
AD/LDAP
support,
multi-­‐tenant
queue
support
(something
like
a
message
bus),
support
for
Windows
services
(legacy
application
support),
etc..
Now,
with
the
availability
of
Java

3. Briefing
Notes
-­‐
Apprenda
A
Briefing
Note
By
Krishnan
Subramanian
support
in
Apprenda
Platform,
enterprises
can
take
advantage
of
two
of
the
dominant
languages
inside
the
enterprises
even
today
(.NET
and
Java).
Even
within
the
.NET
PaaS
segment,
Apprenda’s
support
for
legacy
apps
gives
them
an
advantage
over
Windows
Azure
in
the
enterprise
market.
Moreover,
they
also
help
service
providers
leverage
Apprenda
platform
to
offer
PaaS
that
fits
very
well
with
the
federated
cloud
model
strongly
advocated
by
Rishidot
Research.
With
the
announcement
today
that
J
P
Morgan
Chase
is
using
Apprenda
platform
for
their
mission
critical
applications,
they
have
not
only
showcased
their
platform
as
one
of
the
strong
contenders
for
enterprise
PaaS
but
also
showed
the
world
that
even
large
enterprises
can
trust
PaaS
for
their
developer
needs.
Advantages
-­‐ Support
for
legacy
and
modern
applications.
It
may
not
fit
into
the
puritan
definition
of
PaaS
where
the
platform
is
meant
to
support
only
modern
applications
but
it
solves
an
important
enterprise
need
for
a
platform
that
could
support
the
legacy
apps
along
with
a
way
to
build
modern
distributed
apps.
Enterprises
are
heavily
invested
in
legacy
apps
and
any
platform
that
supports
these
apps
will
find
favor
in
this
segment
-­‐ Offers
support
for
more
.NET
programming
constructs
and
deeper
integration
with
Microsoft
services
than
the
Polyglot
platforms
-­‐ Enterprises
wanting
to
have
an
easier
on-­‐ramp
to
Windows
Azure
in
a
hybrid
setup
will
find
Apprenda
platform
more
useful
-­‐ The
fact
that
they
have
some
large
enterprise
customers
takes
any
longevity
concerns
out
of
picture
and
makes
them
a
very
attractive
acquisition
target
Disadvantages
-­‐ Lack
of
support
for
modern
languages
is
a
handicap
for
any
organization
wanting
to
use
languages
like
PHP,
Ruby,
Python,
etc..
-­‐ Support
for
NoSQL
is
missing.
However,
Apprenda
API
can
talk
to
NoSQL
data
stores
hosted
elsewhere
Competitors
We
see
the
following
vendors
as
competitors
to
Apprenda:
• Traditional
middleware
players
• Both
hosted
and
Private
PaaS
providers
• Public
infrastructure
cloud
providers
• Even
though
Apprenda
has
been
few
steps
ahead
of
Microsoft
in
offering
a
more
robust
enterprise
platform,
the
threat
from
one
of
the
largest
software
companies
in
the
world
will
always
be
a
concern

4. Briefing
Notes
-­‐
Apprenda
A
Briefing
Note
By
Krishnan
Subramanian
Summary
Apprenda
has
clearly
shown
the
world
that
enterprise
can
rely
on
PaaS
to
meet
their
developer
needs.
They
are
taking
the
best
of
breed
approach
to
application
development
platform
over
Polyglot.
With
the
announcement
that
J
P
Morgan
Chase
is
one
of
their
customers,
they
are
positioning
themselves
to
be
a
strong
competitor
in
the
rising
PaaS
market.
As
the
Youtube
generation
of
developers
(a
term
we
use
for
very
young
developers
who
grew
up
with
internet)
enters
the
enterprise
developer
workforce,
the
demands
for
modern
language
will
eventually
force
Apprenda
to
support
these
languages.