While Windows Azure is designed first and foremost to appeal to .Net developers, Microsoft has been adding tools for those who want to work on cloud apps using PHP, Ruby and even — gasp — Java.
Recently, Microsoft went public with proof-of-concept information about another Java tool that can be hosted on .Net: The Jetty HTTP server.
Microsoft announced last fall support for implementing Java Servlet and JavaServer pages using the open-source Tomcat technology. Microsoft created a Solution Accelerator to help developers who wanted to use Tomcat in place of its own Internet Information Services (IIS) Web server technology in the cloud. At the Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft demonstrated how Domino’s was using TomCat on Azure.
Tomcat isn’t Java developers’ only Java-based Web-server option on Azure, however. In late March, Microsoft Architect David Chou outlined the way developers can use Jetty as an HTTP server and Servlet container in Microsoft’s cloud environment. If there’s enough interest, Microsoft may develop a Jetty Solution Accelerator, similar to the Tomcat one, said Vijay Rajagopalan, Principal Architect in the Microsoft Interoperability team.
Jetty is used by a number of projects, including the Apache Geronimo app server, BEA WebLogic Event Server, Google App Engine (which is a competitor to Windows Azure), Google Android, RedHat JBoss and others, Microsoft officials noted on an April 14 post to the Windows Azure Team blog.
Last month, Microsoft Architect David Chou outlined the way developers can use Jetty as an HTTP server and Servlet container in Microsoft’s cloud environment. Jetty provides an asynchronous HTTP Server, a Servlet container, Web Sockets server, asynchronous HTTP client, and OSGi/JNDI/JMX/JASPI and AJP support.
In other Java-on-Azure news, Microsoft is working with Persistent Systems Ltd. on delivering this summer new updates to its Java, Ruby and PHP software-development toolkits for Azure, said Rajagopalan. These SDKs are now known officially as AppFabric SDKs for Java, Ruby and PHP.
Any developers out there interested in Tomcat or Jetty on Azure? I’d be interested to hear why/why not?
