Well, sort of.

Not just an “app,” but a serious SaaS enabling applications.

The good folks at Peer1 have launched something new. It’s called the CloudXcelerator cloud program, aimed at helping you succeed in developing and launching your own application.

All you have to do is to apply here and if you are selected, you will be able to develop, test and run your cloud application on the company’s SuperNetwork™ infrastructure. You will enjoy discounted hosting, discounted storage, free publicity, free lead generation, and co-marketing funds.

Photo by Bob Jagendorf (c) 2010 by permission

ElasticHosts is the second European cloud infrastructure provider and the world’s first public cloud based upon KVM, the native Linux virtualization platform.

ElasticHosts makes flexible virtualization easy. You configure the company’s sophisticated infrastructure to match your needs with any web browser, giving you an unmatched combination of instant flexibility, ease of use and cost efficiency.

The idea behind ElasticHosts was driven by the enormous impact of virtualization on every aspect of server technology, but realized that some of their customers sometimes found it a challenge to achieve the scale and expertise necessary to exploit this alone.

The company provides flexible server capacity in the UK for scalable web hosting and on-demand burst computing such as batch processing, dev/test, disaster recovery and cloud bursting.

ElasticHosts offers competitive pricing for both subscription and burst use, fast direct links to the UK/EU internet, data storage within EU jurisdiction, dual redundant availability zones and outstanding performance for any PC operating system with fully flexible sizing.

Appropriately named, MongoDB (as in “humongous”) is a scalable, high-performance, open source, schema-free, document-oriented database.

MongoDB helps you bridge the gap between key-value stores (which are fast and highly scalable) and traditional RDBMS systems (which provide structured schemas and powerful queries).

Key features of MongoDB include dynamic queries, fast in-place updates, efficient storage of binary data, auto-sharding for cloud-level scalability and MapReduce for complex aggregation. MongoDB is well suited for scenarios like the operational data store of web site infrastructure, data caching, real-time performance counters and problems requiring high scalability or the ability to easily modify fields.

If you’re a developer look here in the company’s Developer Zone. A great resource for learning and sharing.

Here’s MongoDB’s Philosophy

• Databases are specializing – the “one size fits all” approach no longer applies.
• By reducing transactional semantics the db provides, one can still solve an interesting set of problems where performance is very important, and horizontal scaling then becomes easier.
• The (JSON) document data model is easy to code to, easy to manage (schemaless), and yields excellent performance by grouping relevant data together internally.
• A non-relational approach is the best path to database solutions which scale horizontally to many machines.
• While there is an opportunity to relax certain capabilities for better performance, there is also a need for deeper functionality than that provided by pure key/value stores.
• Database technology should run anywhere, being available both for running on your own servers or VMs, and also as a cloud pay-for-what-you-use service.

If you’re a developer, you’ll love Apprenda – the creator of SaaSGrid – the next generation application server purpose-built to solve the architecture, business and operational complexities of delivering software as a service in the cloud.

SaaSGrid is a distributed application server middleware, that eliminates both the technical and business challenges of delivering software as a service. Think of it as the know how and smarts that makes your SaaS applications run.

They’ve eliminated  significant technical hurdles like single instance multi-tenancy and grid scalability, while at the same time providing “out of the box” application services like billing and subscriber management,application lifecycle management, and much more, SaaSGrid is helping software companies achieve sustained market leadership through superior software delivery.

There’s two ways to work with Apprenda…

1.  New Applications for SaaSGrid

If you’ve ever a non-SaaS web application using Microsoft .NET it will be like old home week using SaaSGrid.  What we like about SaaSGrid is that how it was designed with no custom, highly proprietary languages or unhardened, closed technology stacks that prevent you from accessing value and the technology you’ve already built for your own apps or your clients.

SaaSGrid applications are built using Microsoft .NET and the Microsoft family of technologies, so you can easily  port your application, utilize off the shelf or open source components, and take advantage of your largest asset – the development knowledge already present in today’s workforce.

2.  Deploying Existing Applications on SaaSGrid (And why you may not always need virtualization)

SaaSGrid applications are written using Microsoft technologies like .NET, ASP.NET and SQL Server, giving you the ability to rapidly migrate your existing Microsoft .NET application to a true web native, multi-tenant SaaS application without incurring the penalty of implementing the SaaS specifics.

However, migrating your application code, isn’t enough. Moving to SaaS requires business and operational processes to be in place to support new pricing, revenue and support models. SaaSGrid makes leveraging your codebase easier, and deploys your newly ported application to a SaaS hosting environment that automatically provides you with all the necessary tools to make a successful business migration to SaaS. Don’t be fooled by intermediary solutions like virtualization that give you the ability to deploy dedicated instances for your customers, but don’t offer the power and economics of true single instance multi-tenancy or the necessary operational tools to run your SaaS business.

Virtualization used to be the only way to quickly move to SaaS, but SaaSGrid gives the best of both worlds: get to market fast and have an arsenal of tools to support your transition from an on-premises business to a SaaS business.

SaaSGrid is truly a new category of platform technology to power SaaS applications in the cloud era. As a new breed of cloud middleware, SaaSGrid is enabling the next generation of applications to embrace and leverage the full power of cloud computing, multi-tenant SaaS architecture and highly efficient grid execution to deliver business critical applications at web scale.

Apprenda was founded by a team of software engineers frustrated with reinventing the wheel after working on a series of projects that took existing on-premises software applications to the SaaS model. They realized that the bulk of their effort was focused on complex tasks un-related to the actual applications functionality or business value, but absolutely critical to the ongoing cost of providing access to the software as a service. These platform issues such as multi-tenancy (for sharing a single instance of the codebase and a single database across multiple clients and many end users); user and role management; metering and billing capabilities; and scaling properties occupied 60%+ of the development time and up to 80% of the codebase.

The founding Apprendans decided to abstract away all of these platform issues by creating a middleware technology that would allow developers to focus on UI and business logic rather than lower level platform issues. This vector of innovation is fundamentally a continuation of the improvements made to software development achieved by the introduction of the operating system for desktop applications and the application server for web applications. SaaSGrid is the modern abstraction layer for SaaS applications in the cloud era.

By it’s name, Assembla, sound very much like the word, assemble. Maybe think of it as assemble meets new business processes in which teams around the world can collectively build software from a central repository.

If you’re a developer or a consulting firm building software for clients, Assembla can be an ideal way to collaborate.

In this video, you see a demonstration of  how to create a new space, add and remove tools, and rearrange the space navigation.

Assembla helps your create, build and story your code in a secure environment known as  Spaces.  Creating new spaces and managing your existing ones are the most basic and important functions for getting the most out of your Assembla subscription. It’s easy to configure your space to fit your needs.

If you have a dedicated hosting configuration, then you should consider Assembla Private Installations where you own, integrate and customize your solution.

Check out Assembla and tell them that DedicatedHosting.com sent you!

Omar Uddin is a change agent of social change.  His goal is to help solve the problem of getting people to volunteer and become the new first responders for causes around the globe.  His company, UVision Consulting, developed a solution known as VolunteerACT, that enables people to not just follow causes, but get involved as volunteers with those causes and learn something at the same time. So, beyond the traditional meet-up sites that exist, VolunteerACT helps organizations and causes gain measurable value from a volunteer through productivity and results from the work just like any other staff would be part of the team to help.

Seeing that there were large number non-profits in the metro Washington, DC area, Uddin saw a greater opportunity for change when our nation was going through a giant economic downturn.  Even though the economy is slightly turning around, Uddin learned that people have been donating less and becoming more active as volunteers since 2008 when the recession started.  Research also suggests that volunteers are now more likely to donate money or motivate others to donate than simply just marketing to donors. Above and beyond traditional volunteer management, he envisioned a reactive force of a range of volunteers from micro-volunteerism, on-site volunteers and remote volunteers who could collaborate to aid causes such as becoming, if you will, first responders to a natural disaster such as earthquakes and tsunamis.  With his premise that people tend to self organize to not only have their voice heard, they want to show action and leadership and engage others who are like minded.  VolunteerACT is a platform that helps connect what have traditionally been followers into volunteers wanting to make a difference.

With the economy still rebounding, the reality is that with 10% unemployment in the US, increasing school tuition and decreasing funding to educational institutions, it’s tough for many people to both look for jobs and find a way to stand out from the saturation of job applicants. Volunteering over time can be a way to build a civic and social transcript that may one day become the norm. In fact, Change.org provides a guide for how you can include your volunteer experience on your resume.

VolunteerACT is a great way bring volunteers and causes closer together and create a new culture of volunteerism. Check out their beta and test drive a better way to measure volunteer productivity to further your collective cause.

As for hosting, they are using a combination of dedicated and cloud based services.  The site is hosted on the cloud, and volunteer information – due to privacy issues – remain on dedicated servers.

Uddin represents a generation of social entrepreneurs who are using external hosting providers that lets them focus on core mission of doing social good.

Beanstalk allows designers and developers to store source code, track changes, and collaborate with their team through Git and Subversion version control.  It’s used primarily by software teams, developers, and web designers who don’t want the hassle of setting up and managing their own Subversion or Git server, so they can collaborate, provides confidence when making changes, and offers peace of mind.

While the Internet is full of articles related to version control, I found this post by Fonicmonkey with a well done review of Beanstalk.  His contention is that version control is the first place to start when writing code.

Well said.

Give it a read.

And comment.

Clint Watson calls him self a software craftsman and art fanatic.  He loves to build software and loves great art. His business, known as Fine Art Studio Online, has been helping artists sell their art online.

Originally, Clint helped artists build their web sites, but quickly realized that he did not want to have to make constant changes and modifications that required tremendous amounts of time.   He then developed a platform that enabled artists to build their own web sites without the need for servers and ongoing maintenance.

Here’s Clint’s story on his approach to hybrid hosting and how he’s helping artists from all over the world expand their reach.  Watch carefully as Clint not only talks about his business, but his approach in building a virtual company.