DreamFactory, Verizon Team Up on Developer Cloud Portal
A recently formalized partnership between DreamFactory and Verizon Partner Solutions allows enterprise developers to write IoT and mobile applications that securely access legacy databases, among others, in everything up to mainframes, and ultimately move their workloads into scalable development, test and production deployments on Verizon Cloud.
Developers can write apps using the REST API backend available on the DreamFactory-Verizon Partner Solutions portal, which automatically generates reusable REST APIs for their data sources. After testing apps using the free portal, developers can easily progress their development and test workloads into private, dedicated CloudSpaces on the Verizon Cloud for scalable production deployments, said Bill Appleton, DreamFactory CEO and co-founder, in an interview.
"We see this a lot, where companies have legacy databases – especial SQL databases – and they need to mobilize it but they need a secure gateway. So one scenario you could see developing is where they're using Verizon Cloud with, maybe, multiple servers and load balancers for a very large deployment, and relying on legacy data on-premise or elsewhere on the Verizon cloud," he said. "Also I would point to green field development. Some we're seeing is on NoSQL as a very flexible way to get started. The beauty of IaaS like Verizon Cloud is what can start out as a small app is, if it goes viral, it can be scaled up."
The jointly developed portal should address IT clients' concerns about shadow IT implementations that may not consider corporate policies, Dawane Young, director of Platforms and Applications at Verizon Partner Solutions, told EnterpriseTech. Simultaneously, it deals with business leaders' worries that – bound by these policies – IT departments do not always act quickly enough to deliver the best-suited tools to employees, he said. As the Internet of Things explodes this topic will become increasingly critical, he said.
"So much of the decision-making about tools and platforming are being driven by developers themselves, but if it can be done in partnership with IT, so much the better," added Jan Liband, chief marketing officer at DreamFactory, in an interview.
Previously, in-house developers might have written their app for a cloud service unapproved by IT, resulting in demand for a rewrite or fears of a security breach or other corporate hurdle, said Appleton. By writing apps in the cloud from Day One, developers have a "frictionless way instantly access RESTful API services hosted in IaaS, plus an easy progression of those new dev/test workloads to production — all in a secure, scalable, cloud-hosted environment," wrote DreamFactory Co-Founder Eric Rubin in a blog post.
Despite developers' growing role in cloud selection, IT still dominates the corporate cloud conversation – and contracts, said Appleton. It's imperative that developers and IT have a cloud solution they are both comfortable using.
"This new breed of developers for mobile, tablet and phone, they are very likely to adopt some hosted backed services … but when it comes time for deployment they are stuck and it may be at odds with what the IT department expects and wants," he said.
The developer portal's other features include:
- Immediate access to REST APIs for any data source, regardless of its location;
- Multi-level security, including access privileges governed by mechanisms such as single sign-on, role-based and record-level access;
- Client SDKs for HTML5 and JavaScript frameworks; native iOS and Android development.
The portal, which was formalized as a result of client interest, is available now.
