Verizon Enlists DreamFactory for Cloud Integration

For the most part cloud service providers are generally platforms through that application developers invoke to either host their applications or access additional backend services.

With that role in mind, Verizon has formed a strategic alliance with DreamFactory, a provider of an open source backend-as-a-service (BaaS) software based on REST application programming interfaces (APIs). Rather than asking developers to master low level code to integrate with backend systems, DreamFactory enables solution providers to more easily integrate any number of backend applications and systems using a standard set of REST APIs.

Dawane Young, director for platforms and applications in the Verizon Partner Solutions Group, said that partnering with DreamFactory represents a huge step forward in terms of the self-service integration capabilities Verizon will be able to provide application developers.

As an open source integration framework, DreamFactory CEO Bill Appleton said partnerships with cloud service providers such as Verizon are important because as a small company DreamFactory doesn’t have the resources to build a massive channel on its own. The Verizon alliance gives developers using the company’s integration framework a convenient service in the cloud through which they can access almost any backend function that exposes a REST API, said Appleton.

As cloud service providers try to build an ecosystem made up of resellers and integrators that will drive adoption of the applications deployed on their cloud, the decision to use one cloud over another often comes down to the integration experience. Like it or not developers are increasingly forcing the cloud infrastructure issue in terms of picking cloud service providers. The issue that creates for the channel is that the decision as to what cloud service provider to partner is being driven by the preference a developer may have for one cloud or another. All things being equal in terms of cost and availability, the more likely it becomes that developers are going to be swayed by how simple it is to integrate their applications with a variety of data sources on any given cloud.

While partnering with DreamFactory is obviously one piece in a larger Verizon cloud puzzle; it’s pretty clear that certain classes of mobile and Web applications that tend to be deployed by enterprise IT organizations need to be able to invoke external services. Without that capability, the cloud essentially becomes yet another isolated data silo that more often than no for no apparent benefit winds up making the management of the enterprise even more complex than it ever was in first place.