ActiveState has released Stackato 2.8 this month as an update to its private Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) technology.

New features include Stackato Harbor port service, support for external authentication services like LDAP, updates to the web-based management console UI and administrative workflow, plus also new Stackato Fence security containerization technology.

ActiveState's PR department has sanctioned a quote from CEO Bart Copeland, which boldly claims that, "Stackato 2.8 is the most advanced private PaaS there is."

Whether Copeland's claims of functional prowess is justified or merely mired in the spin of marketing over-emphasis is a moot point. He does point out that his firm is focused on enterprise customers who want stability, security, agility, compliance, scalable administration, and enterprise-grade commercial support.

Stackato's new Harbor Port Service enables users to make TCP or UDP port requests for their applications. Enterprise developers can deploy network applications using protocols other than HTTP(S), and take advantage of multiple SSL certificates. In addition, those developers can connect Java apps to a JPDA debugger without having to rely on an open port.

The Fence subsystem builds on Stackato's data and application security model, streamlining the creation of Linux containers and enabling strict disk-limit enforcement.

Also here, Stackato 2.8 features several service, performance, and framework updates, including support for HSTORE in PostgreSQL, Redis 2.6, and uWSGI 1.4.5 for Perl and Python frameworks.

"Stackato 2.8 users will also benefit from improvements to the best-in-class web-based management console UI and workflow, and up-to-date security patches for Ruby on Rails," says the company.

Stackato 2.8 is available in an enterprise edition, a micro cloud edition, as a sandbox trial, or on public clouds like AWS or HPCS.