Category: Engine Yard

Engine Yard announced the availability of the Node.js programming language within its Platform as a Service environment this week. The announcement means that Engine Yard’s PaaS now supports Ruby, PHP and Node.js. Node.js is an open source programming framework that boasts a unified concurrency environment that enables the construction of real-time, distributed applications. Because Node.js is built on JavaScript, it has the ability to bring together front end and back end, server facing architectures. Node.js is typically used to build applications that require real-time, concurrent feedback across an ecosystem of applications that have significant response times as exemplified by gaming applications, geospatial/travel applications, social networks, dating websites and website analytics applications. The availability of Node.js underscores Engine Yard’s commitment to open source technologies that empower customers to build powerful web applications. Node.js is the second most watched application on the GitHub repository and is used by enterprise customers such as LinkedIn, Walmart, eBay and NW Natural, a gas utility in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

Platform as a Service vendor Engine Yard has added a new participant to its Add-ons program in the form of Totango, a “cloud-based customer engagement platform.” Totango will help Engine Yard’s customers monetize applications they create using its PaaS platform by providing tools to increase conversion rates, boost customer engagement and retention as well as increase customer lifetime value. Totango provides insight about customer engagement with cloud-based applications in addition to marketing campaigns tailored to the specifics of an application’s customer base and its purchasing behavior. Moreover, Totango provides customers with Appbox.js, a javascript application that allows creators of software applications on Engine Yard’s platform to communicate directly with their customers. Totango’s partnership with Engine Yard illustrates yet another cloud market niche in the form of applications that provide insight into more effective monetization channels for cloud-based applications. Startups and developers in particular will benefit greatly from visibility into customer behavior and correspondingly tailored marketing campaigns designed to increase conversions and grow a customer base for PaaS-based applications such as those created within Engine Yard’s platform.

Today, PaaS vendor Engine Yard revealed details of an expanded partner program for three tracks of partners, namely, (1) Solution Providers, (2) Technology Providers and (3) Infrastructure as a Service providers. The Engine Yard partner program elaborates how Engine Yard will assist partners that contribute to the ecosystem of products and services that surrounds its PaaS platform. Engine Yard hopes that the partner program will uniquely position it to “provide the most robust cloud offerings available to developers” as a result of the way in which its partners collectively enhance the value of its PaaS offering.

The three partner tracks in Engine Yard’s Partner Program are as follows:

Solution Providers

Solution providers are “dev shops, design agencies, consultants and systems integrators” who use the Engine Yard platform as a service to deliver products for their clients. Engine Yard claims over 200 solution providers at present.

Technology Providers

Technology providers are vendors who offer third party software that are either integrated into Engine Yard’s PaaS platform or otherwise serve as platform “enhancements or extensions.” Over 100 technology providers enhance Engine Yard’s platform currently.

Infrastructure Providers

Infrastructure as a Service providers offer Engine Yard within their IaaS offerings as branded solutions for customers seeking a PaaS solution that matches Engine Yard’s “deep expertise in Ruby on Rails and PHP.” Examples of Engine Yard’s Infrastructure Providers include Amazon Web Services and Terremark.

Engine Yard offers partners a variety of technical and sales and marketing support in order to contribute toward their success. In addition to the partner program, Engine Yard announced a startup incubation program that facilitates the movement of “early stage companies from an idea to running cloud-based applications in production easily and cost-effectively.” Participating startups will receive free premium technical support, free development hours and discounts on training and other consulting services from Engine Yard.

PaaS vendor Engine Yard announced record growth for 2011 marked by $28 million in revenue and over 2000 paying customers. The revenue growth rate of 58% and an over 50% increase in the number of customers in 2011 enabled Engine Yard to claim leadership in the PaaS space. Other highlights for 2011 included the acquisition of Orchestra and the launch of Engine Yard labs, which provides users with the opportunity to examine new features and functionality in a test environment. Engine Yard acquired Orchestra in August 2011 to form the basis of its Orchestra PHP Cloud for deploying and managing PHP based applications. Today, Engine Yard’s Orchestra PHP Cloud runs alongside its Ruby on Rails-based Engine Yard Cloud. Engine Yard’s Orchestra PHP Cloud celebrates a significant release later this month featuring increased configurability through APIs and higher performance due to optimized stack images, as well as superior auto-scaling. San Francisco-based Engine Yard is backed by Benchmark Capital, New Enterprise Associates and Amazon.com.