News

Java PaaS Provider Jelastic Integrates with NetBeans

• By John K. Waters
• May 8, 2013

Java-based Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider Jelastic has created a plug-in for the NetBeans integrated development environment (IDE), the company announced this week.

The new plug-in allows users of the Jelastic platform to access their development, test, and production deployments from within the venerable Java IDE.

Jelastic is a Java- and PHP-based cloud hosting platform designed to run any Java application in the cloud without code or language changes, and without the need to write for specific APIs. It supports any JVM-based app, including apps developed with Java 6, Java 7, JRuby, Scala and Groovy.

The new plug-in aims to make life easier for Java EE developers using NetBeans to build Web apps on the Jelastic platform. It lets users of the IDE log in to the platform, create projects and deploy them directly. The key advantage, according to the company: They can develop and manage their deployments and hosting environments without jumping between NetBeans and a browser.

Oracle released NetBeans 7.3 in February with new support for HTML5 and CSS, and a new JavaScript editor and debugger based on the Nashorn-based JavaScript engine. Although NetBeans is historically best-known as a Java IDE, the environment supports a growing number of languages and frameworks, including PHP, Groovy, C, C++, JavaScript and Ajax, and Grails. It also supports Ant, Maven, and Hudson. In fact, the NetBeans project comprises the IDE and an application platform that aims to be used as a generic framework for building virtually any kind of application.

Jelastic also provides plug-ins for Maven, Ant, Hudson, and Jenkins. The company recently added Apache TomEE to the list of application servers supported by the platform. That list also includes Tomcat (6 and 7), GlassFish, and Jetty. Jelastic also supports three SQL databases: MariaDB, MySQL, and PostgreSQL; and supports the non-SQL databases MongoDB and CouchDB.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Jelastic was founded in 2010 by Hivetext, a Zhytomyr, Ukraine-based startup focused on Java application development in the cloud. Ruslan Synytsky, founder and CEO of Jelastic, has said that his company's flagship platform is the first Java PaaS to provide "full application compatibility and developer control," and "the only choice for Java developers" who want to avoid lock-in.