Google has released a preview of a new service where developers can house their developed applications within Google’s infrastructure. The service has been named Google App Engine and looks to help developers bypass difficulties that are common with application creation and development such as long deployment schedules and scalability problems. Google’s main aim seems to attract programmers who need a larger and more scalable platform to be able to develop applications with the hope of increasing the amount of online applications and in turn attract more internet users (a.k.a. advertising opportunities).

On the other hand, Google hopes to attract a range of developers and large companies to Google App Engine, who they believe will benefit from the scalability of the service as well as easier data mining. For now the preview is focused on reaching smaller consumer targeted applications.

The Web as a Platform

The idea of using the web as a platform is not new. Amazon released their online data storage service AmazonS3 to enable users to make use of their huge data storage capabilities. The difference with Google’s is that they are offering a fully integrated service; developers can directly create applications and APIs and host the finished product so it’s visible to the end users. It seems the general consensus is that using the web as a hosting platform is a much more attractive option for many web developers than using physical servers. In a way it is the economies of scale of mass hosting; everyone can benefit from sharing.

The Technical Info

The application currently only supports software written in python programming language although Google hopes to support all types of programming language in the near future. They hope programmers will have the ability to create any type of application using any language they desire . Developers can also write software offline using the Google Software Development Kit and then upload it onto the App Engine.

For the time being the App Engine has limits of 500mb of storage and 10GB of daily data bandwidth. This is basically enough to power websites with 5million views per month.

The Future

The future implications of using the web as a platform are huge. Through simplifying the process and handling the entire life cycle of an appliance Google will most probably attract a new generation of developers who will effectively be able to outsource certain aspects of web development. This will mean less time can be spent on restructuring, data mining, data basing and more on designing more useful and exciting internet applications. As for Google, this seems to be yet another step on the way to ‘Googlizing’ the internet: users can design and develop on App Engine, connect to domain through Google App, serve Ads with Google AdSense, and sell through Google checkout.

by Peter Jackson from 77Academy