Popular cloud hosting providers for Java web applications
It is safe to say that Cloud Computing has already made its way from a buzzword to a widely adopted technology in the world of software development.
Cloud computing helps developers overcome the limitations of local IT environments. It eliminates the need for a large-scale in-house IT infrastructure to host applications. This reduces development costs and shortens the deployment cycle. Today, numerous cloud hosting providers allow software developers to use almost any popular programming language, including Java and its extensive JVM languages family.
By choosing the right cloud services provider, Java web applications can be easily deployed, run, and autoscaled in the cloud. Comparing dozens of Java cloud hosting providers across hundreds of development-related factors can be challenging. However, we hope this overview of major cloud hosting providers will be helpful for you.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a leading cloud computing platform by Amazon. It offers software developers a complete Java environment with robust infrastructure and application services. With AWS, you can easily run various applications in the cloud, including Big Data projects, enterprise-level applications, and mobile apps.
For Java developers, AWS provides tools like the AWS Toolkit for Eclipse and the AWS SDK for Java. These tools simplify connecting your Java web applications to popular AWS services. These include Amazon EC2, Amazon S3 cloud storage, and DynamoDB NoSQL database.
BitNami is a cloud hosting solution built on AWS, offering a vast library of environments and popular web application stacks. It enables quick deployment of over 30 applications, including WordPress, Drupal, SugarCRM, Redmine, and Alfresco.
The BitNami library includes a fully configured Java environment, available as a Windows installer, VMware image, or AWS/Azure cloud server. While BitNami environments are thoroughly tested and pre-configured, developers can easily add optional components like PostgreSQL or Tomcat.
Google App Engine (GAE) was one of the first Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions, with its preview released in April 2008. Built with Java, Python, and Go, GAE’s Java environment uses Java 6 JVM and a Java Servlets interface.
It offers a comprehensive set of tools and interfaces, such as JDO and JPA for datastore access, JavaMail Mail API, and JCache for Memcache. The App Engine Java SDK simplifies application testing and deployment. GAE also provides development plugins for popular Java IDEs.
Jelastic is a newer player among Java cloud hosting providers. It exited closed beta in October 2011 and won Duke’s Choice Technology Leader Award in September 2012. This made it a popular choice for rapid deployment of large-scale Java applications.
Jelastic is easy to use because, unlike GAE or AWS, developers don’t need to code to a service-specific API. You simply upload your Java application, and Jelastic runs and autoscales it with minimal server configuration. It supports various Java-related software stacks, popular servers like Tomcat, GlassFish, Jetty, Apache, and Nginx, as well as databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, and CouchDB.
Windows Azure is a cloud computing platform by Microsoft. It’s competing with IT giants like Amazon and Google in the PaaS/IaaS market. Despite the name, Azure lets developers launch virtual machines running either Windows or Linux, with several distributions available for both. This flexibility allows you to create scalable applications and services in your preferred environments.
Microsoft provides a well-documented Windows Azure SDK for Java, a Windows Azure Plugin for Eclipse, and full Java stack support. These resources, along with detailed tutorials and a 90-day trial, help developers get familiar with Azure before deciding on a Java cloud hosting provider.
Heroku was a pioneer in the cloud PaaS field, starting development in 2007. It has since received numerous industry awards and remains a top PaaS choice for reliability, support, and a wide range of options.
Initially designed for hosting Ruby apps, Heroku now fully supports the Java stack. Developers can use Java frameworks and popular JVM languages like Scala and Clojure, along with Java app servers such as Tomcat, Jetty, and Netty.
Heroku is known for its Agile-style deployment. It allows software developers to quickly deploy apps directly from their IDEs without dealing with complex server management.
The platform also offers a large catalog of add-ons—additional cloud services that integrate seamlessly with your applications. These add-ons enable easy integration with databases like MongoDB or PostgreSQL, RabbitMQ messaging, WebSolr indexing, and many other features.
There’s a big number of other cloud hosting providers for Java and JVM languages, both large and small — EngineYard, CloudBeesm OpenShift by RedHat and Cloud Foundry by VMware, to name a few. Almost all of them have great Java development core stack support and offer flexible pricing plans.
We hope that you’ll be able to use this short overview as a start point for further research when you decide to use the Cloud for your next big Java project. Feel free to contact Abto Software if you need an experienced and reliable Java software development outsourcing team.
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