VMware gets help to build and deploy cloud apps more easily

The Bitnami Launchpad for VMware vCloud Air OnDemand website lists pre-configured images that can be installed with just a few clicks. The goal is to make it easier for companies to deploy the apps and development environments on vCloud Air, without having to manually set up anything, according to VMware.

On the website, vCloud Air users can click on any of the apps, choose from configuration options such as server size and region, and then click "launch." Images for Drupal, Joomla, WordPress and SugarCRM are all available. LAMP, Ruby and Node.js software stacks are there too.

The underlying technology Bitnami has developed takes care of compiling and configuring the applications and all of their dependencies. The resulting packaged software is then made available as native installers, virtual machines and cloud images.

To get started with the VMware offering, users have to sign up for vCloud Air and create a Bitnami account. They pay for the cloud resources they consume.

VMware is in many respects playing catch up in the cloud sector. A case in point: Google partnered with Bitnami earlier this year on Cloud Launcher. It lets companies deploy apps, software stacks and operating systems with a few clicks, this time on Google Compute Engine.

Bitnami can also be used to launch apps on Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. On top of AWS, Bitnami hosts the more advanced Cloud Hosting platform, which includes more monitoring tools and integrated backup functionality.

To have a chance to compete head-on with Amazon, Google and Microsoft, VMware still has an uphill battle ahead of it. The company is doing all it can to take advantage of its strong position in enterprise data centers by mixing private and public clouds. But to be more competitive on public clouds, VMware has to expand its instance and service offerings sooner rather than later.

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