Zend Technologies has launched Simple API for Cloud Application Services project, a new open source initiative that allows developers to use common application services in the cloud, while enabling them to access features available from individual providers.
Along with Zend, IBM, Microsoft, Nirvanix, Rackspace and GoGrid are co-founding contributors to this community project. The project aims to facilitate the development of cloud applications that can access services on all major cloud platforms.
Led by Zend, the largest corporate contributor to the PHP programming language, the Simple Cloud API can be translated to any object-oriented language for the web. The PHP implementation will be available in the open source Zend Framework project as a new component, called ‘Zend Cloud’.
According to Zend, the Simple Cloud API project allows developers to use one interface to interact with a variety of cloud application services, enabling them to access new technologies from cloud vendors. The first deliverables will include interfaces for file storage (Windows Azure blobs, Rackspace Cloud Files, Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network and Amazon S3), document database (Windows Azure tables and Amazon SimpleDB), and simple queue services (Amazon SQS and Windows Azure queues).
Reportedly, other adapters, such as those for Rackspace Cloud Files API, will work with external libraries with no changes to application code. Microsoft is also contributing Simple Cloud API adapters, along with the official PHP client libraries for Windows Azure storage, to future versions of Zend Framework.
Andi Gutmans, CEO at Zend Technologies, said: “The Simple Cloud API combines the benefits of open source community processes with the active participation of the cloud vendors themselves. With early participation and support from industry leaders and the Zend Framework community, we anticipate that this important project will continue to grow, serving a wide range of application developers and businesses building modern Web applications for the cloud.”
