Platform-as-a-Service player Engine Yard has announced the general availability of the Node.js framework for building highly scalable real-time web applications on Engine Yard Cloud.
The commercial grade Engine Yard Cloud is a configurable PaaS for Ruby on Rails, PHP, (and now) Node.js — the JavaScript "language of the browser" designed to unify development of front-end and server-side architectures.
"Node.js is a popular programming framework that is increasingly used by developers to create cloud-native applications," said Yefim Natis, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. Natis argues that by using a PaaS in this instance, development teams can focus on building high-performance mobile and web business apps, instead of managing the underlying cloud infrastructure.
NOTE: Node.js is an open source, event-driven application development framework built with a single unifying concurrency model that simplifies the development of distributed real-time applications. It has a growing, active, and passionate community that boasts the second most watched repository on Github.
Engine Yard explains that typical use cases for Node.js include real-time applications that require constant feedback and input. Also web applications that are concurrent and have long running requests or responses, such as networked multiplayer games, interactive tools, and websites and web analytics.
"Engine Yard has always been a strong advocate of open source technology. In parallel with the company's continued investment in the Ruby on Rails and PHP communities, Engine Yard is committed to supporting Node.js and its growing adoption," said Bill Platt, VP, operations at Engine Yard.
