The last ten years has been an exciting and challenging journey for me and I’m very proud of the technology and community that my SpringSource cofounders and I fostered. However, there always comes a time to make a choice about the places you’ll go, and it’s time for me to leave VMware and pursue other interests. I wish VMware and my colleagues continued success, and know that Spring will continue to thrive.

Technology

Spring was created to simplify enterprise Java development, and has succeeded in that goal. The Spring community continues to grow, Spring is more widely adopted than ever and Spring has…

Today I am proud to announce version 5 of our VMware vFabric™ application platform defining the future of enterprise Java for cloud and virtualized execution environments. vFabric blazes the path to new and modern cloud architectures by providing a modern programming model paired with next-generation platform services. A path that is not overgrown with the cruft and complexity of prior-generation technologies. With vFabric 5, VMware is ensuring that enterprise Java is ready to meet the challenges of tomorrow’s demanding, data-intensive, massively scalable applications.

vFabric 5 continues to provide the best place to run your Spring applications with vFabric tc Server and the ability to monitor and manage those production solutions with incredible intelligence via vFabric Hyperic. The platform also addresses the technical challenges of cloud computing head on, supporting new approaches to data management that enable applications to scale across elastic, geographically distributed cloud architectures with our vFabric GemFire and RabbitMQ…

Today, we have exciting news for developers: the launch of Cloud Foundry: an open source “Platform as a Service” (PaaS) from VMware allowing easy deployment of applications written using Spring, Rails and other modern frameworks. Cloud Foundry breaks new ground in PaaS through supporting a choice of programming models; a choice of services from VMware and third parties; a choice of clouds for deployment; and being delivered in open source.

Since the creation of Spring, we’ve remained faithful to a few core values: notably, Productivity and Portability. Today, these proven values extend beyond Spring and Java into VMware’s broader cloud computing strategy. Spring makes developers more productive by reducing time spent away from business logic; Cloud Foundry eliminates time spent installing and configuring infrastructure such as application servers and JVMs. Spring facilitates portability between deployment destinations; Cloud Foundry is both a key deployment destination itself and a layer that…

Today, VMware announces with this blog the acquisition of WaveMaker, a widely used graphical tool that enables non-expert developers to build web applications quickly.  While WaveMaker is already part of the Spring ecosystem, it will now become an integral part of the Spring family and VMware’s cloud strategy. All of WaveMaker’s staff will be joining VMware.

This acquisition furthers VMware’s cloud application platform strategy by empowering additional developers to build and run modern applications that share information with underlying infrastructure to maximize performance, quality of…

We are currently celebrating our 6^th SpringOne 2GX developer show—since last year, also a celebration of Groovy and Grails. As always, it’s great to hang out with the developer community that has made Spring the phenomenon it is. This year, we not only have record attendance (doubled over last year!) and a fantastic roster of partners (headed by Google, salesforce.com and Accenture), but an unusually large number of initiatives to share with our community.

With so many topics to discuss this could easily turn into the longest blog post in history. Instead, let’s address some of the highlights…

At this year’s VMworld, VMware is unveiling our vision for enabling IT as a Service. Today’s announcement outlines the three major layers of the IT stack that we feel are critical to delivering IT as a service—cloud infrastructure and management, cloud application platform, and end user computing—and lays out our roadmap for addressing it. Spring developer technologies and SpringSource middleware play a key role in our vision, and we believe we are opening exciting new opportunities to our community.

As part of this strategy, we are announcing our cloud application platform, under the new VMware vFabric brand. This platform delivers on the promise of VMware’s acquisition of SpringSource, pulling together our assets into a single, next-generation infrastructure. While the respective components will remain available separately, we believe this integrated offering will provide a simpler, more efficient, option.

The VMware vFabric platform combines the Spring development framework and tools with VMware vFabric platform services that enable fast delivery of next-generation applications that are instantly scalable and cloud-portable.

Today’s announcement is a natural continuation of our work over the last 5 years. We started out by transforming enterprise Java productivity with the Spring Framework and the innovation of POJO programming; extended the Spring programming model to address security, batch, integration and other important requirements; continued to simplify enterprise Java deployment with tc Server and Hyperic; further helped productivity with SpringSource Tool Suite, Grails and Spring Roo; added cloud-ready messaging and data grid capabilities with our acquisitions of Rabbit Technologies and GemStone Systems; and integrated with the industry’s leading virtualization solution. Out of these best of breed parts, we are today announcing a unified platform.

Why is a New Application Platform Needed?

The rise of virtualization and cloud computing combined with the popularity of consumer and software-as-a-service applications such as Facebook and Salesforce.com are driving significant shifts in application architectures – across infrastructure, applications, data access, and how end users interact with applications.

Modern applications need to be easy to use, data rich, and provide access anywhere, anytime. Developers need the frameworks, tools and platform services that enable them to build great applications and immediately deploy those applications onto an intelligent platform that provisions itself on demand and scales the application based on policy.

IT needs a platform for this new generation of applications that is free of the complexity, bloat and limitations of prior-generation architectures.

The Unique Value We Provide

The VMware vFabric cloud application platform combines the Spring projects and tools used by millions of Java developers with the VMware vFabric platform services required for powering next-generation applications. The shift toward cloud computing tends to mix developer and operational concerns; we believe that understanding and addressing modern developer requirements is essential.

The path to cloud begins with developer tools and features that make it easy to create new applications that provide a rich, modern user experience and integrate with other applications using proven EAI patterns. Spring applications can be deployed across any Java platform, including WebSphere, WebLogic, JBoss, our own tc Server, as well as public cloud platforms. The best way to get started is to download the SpringSource Tool Suite, which provides a rich development environment and runtime platform that makes creating Spring and Grails applications quick and easy.

VMware vFabric delivers the lightweight footprint and transparent visibility necessary for applications to make the best use of the underlying virtual infrastructure platform with technologies such as tc Server and Hyperic. The platform addresses the technical challenges of cloud computing head on, supporting new approaches to data management that enable applications to scale across elastic, geographically distributed cloud architectures with our GemFire and RabbitMQ technologies.

Where Are We Headed?

At VMworld, we have 6 demo pods where we will be showing the VMware vFabric cloud application platform in action. I encourage you to drop by and check it out.

Our Spring and vFabric engineers continue the blistering pace and will be highlighting even more innovation at the SpringOne 2GX conference in Chicago from October 19 – 22, 2010. In support of our partnerships with Salesforce.com and Google , we have been hard at work extending the Spring programming model and vFabric platform services to enable developers to deploy applications across cloud platforms such as VMforce and Google AppEngine. We encourage you to come see the new advances for yourself.

We feel we have a unique ability to provide the millions of enterprise Java developers with a clear and innovative path to cloud computing architectures, powered by a modern programming model paired with next-generation platform services. A path that is not overgrown with the cruft and complexity of prior-generation architectures. The journey will be fun, and I look forward to taking it together.

A few weeks ago I tweeted that—incredibly—SpringSource was executing faster within VMware than as a startup. Today we announce another exciting development bearing this out.

Following our VMforce partnership with SaaS leader salesforce.com, we are today announcing a collaboration between VMware and Google, centering around the Spring programming model and SpringSource IDE and RAD tooling. Today’s announcement makes Spring the preferred programming model for Google App Engine. This is a tremendous endorsement of Spring as the best and most portable programming model for Java and opens up a new deployment opportunity for Spring developers. The demo in today’s keynote at Google I/O showcased the results from months of collaboration between SpringSource and Google engineers—most of which benefits Spring developers, regardless of where they wish to…

Another week, another important announcement. The SpringSource division of VMware today announced that we have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire GemStone Systems, a leader in data grid technology.

This acquisition, like our recent acquisition of Rabbit Technologies, adds another crucial building block of private and public cloud to our middleware portfolio. Like Rabbit and SpringSource and VMware’s other products, GemStone technology is valuable in both today’s enterprise scenarios and tomorrow’s cloud world. The acquisition also adds an important middleware capability to our…

VMware and Salesforce today announced a partnership to build an enterprise Java cloud called VMforce. The announcement is understandably receiving a lot of attention in the wider industry context, but today I’d like to focus on the central role of SpringSource technology in the new platform and the unique and compelling benefits it brings developers in the Spring community.

What is VMforce?

VMforce is a joint service from VMware and SalesForce. VMforce uses the Force.com physical infrastructure to run vSphere with a special customized vCloud layer that allows for seamless scaling and management. Above this layer VMforce runs SpringSource tc Server instances that provide the execution environment for the enterprise applications that run on VMforce. Spring applications can store their own enterprise data in the Force.com database or use data already resident there. All of these architecture details are seamlessly integrated into a single platform that allows the developer to interact with the server in the way they would with a local tc Server or Tomcat instance.

Developing Spring Applications on VMforce

To ensure that developers are productive with this new platform and able to use their existing skillset, we are building integration with SpringSource Tool Suite that lets developers treat their VMforce account like a simple local Tomcat instance with incredible scalability. Like the rest of STS, the integration will be free.

The STS/VMforce integration means that you can drag and drop applications to deploy them to the platform and take advantage of incremental redeployment to do rapid round trip development even though the platform is…

I am delighted to announce that the SpringSource division of VMware has acquired Rabbit Technologies Ltd., the company behind the popular open source cloud messaging technology RabbitMQ. This acquisition will enhance our middleware portfolio and accelerate our cloud initiatives.

Messaging Evolution in the Cloud

As organizations increasingly build and deploy applications in a cloud environment, the infrastructure to support this new model is evolving. A new type of lightweight, reliable, scalable and portable messaging system is required to support the routing of user requests to the appropriate resources regardless of where they may reside. RabbitMQ is a leader in this field and has demonstrated significant innovation around cloud messaging.

RabbitMQ is well suited for the cloud for three main reasons:

• Open: RabbitMQ is open source, has an open and active community, and is based on open standards. Openness will be a critical factor for successful cloud platforms because moving to the cloud loses a lot of its appeal if it turns out to be just another version of vendor lock-in.
• Flexible Scalability: RabbitMQ is capable of scaling in multiple different ways, not just technical horizontal scaling but also federated messaging that spans cross service scaling all the way up to geographically diverse scaling.
• Protocol based: RabbitMQ is a protocol based, rather than API based, messaging system. This means that messaging clients are not tied to vendor installed libraries which increases portability for applications and allows for client messaging from a wide variety of different platforms. This approach also allows RabbitMQ to support multiple protocols which increases its utility in heterogeneous environments like the cloud.

Indeed, Rabbit's suitability for cloud scenarios is already borne out in practice by its adoption by cloud service providers and organizations building private clouds, such as NASA Nebula.

What does this mean for you?

If you are a member of the RabbitMQ community, this is good news, and a significant further validation for your technical choice. RabbitMQ will continue to be open source and distributed in the same way as before. The community can expect to see increased investment in this outstanding technology which should result in significant improvements to the open source release. The RabbitMQ community can also expect to see the same dedication and support that SpringSource gives to its other open source communities like Spring, Grails, Groovy and Apache based technologies.

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