Engine Yard Local Accelerates Cloud Application Development

PaaS provider Engine Yard is tooting its own horn after the launch of a new development tool that's available on the Engine Yard Cloud. Engine Yard Local was designed to accelerate application development, both locally and in the cloud.

The new tool enables developers to build and test applications on local machines, and then at a later time deploy to the same environment on Engine Yard Cloud. Besides helping develeopers to more easily build, test and deploy cloud applications, the new Engine Yard Local tool also gives developers a simple way to access a remote application running in the tool through a new feature called Engine Yard Live.

"Developers have told us they want a more efficient and productive way to develop and test apps. With Engine Yard Local, we have leapfrogged the traditional approach to software development, which requires a developer to commit an app to a repository, spin up a new instance and deploy the application," said Bill Platt, senior vice president of operations at Engine Yard, in a prepared statement. "Developers can now access a fully functional Engine Yard Cloud virtual machine anywhere, allowing them to build and test their apps on a local version of the Engine Yard stack. This makes application development easier, more flexible and faster, so developers can focus on building great apps."

Over on the Engine Yard blog, Edward Chiu went into further detail about the new development tool. Chiu outlined a scenario that Engine Yard Local was specifically designed to deal with — the construction of a local application that suddenly needs to be cloud-ready.

"Not only do you have to tie up development loose ends but you also have to deploy the application onto the cloud and ensure everything that functions locally also works on a cloud stack! A whole ‘nother ball game," Chiu wrote. For those interested in seeing what Engine Yard Local has to offer, check out Chiu's run-through of the setup and usage of the tool.