Cloud-Based Application Platform and PaaS by LongJump

Phil Wainewright at ZDNet makes a wonderful case for multi-tenancy when it comes to modern SaaS applications.

The strength of multi-tenancy is that each of its multitude of individual tenants keeps it constantly evolving. This is in direct contrast to single tenancy, the whole point of which is to limit evolution only to those changes that are perceived to directly benefit the individual tenant. Thus single tenancy misses out on innovations and other advances that are being adopted by competitors, partners and third-party services.

He makes a great case especially in the collaborative aspects of the cloud. But not all multi-tenant architectures are the same.

One reason why single-tenancies still exist is that they are inherently more open to a wide range of users and they can all operate under a single configuration. This is ideal for collaboration. But that can be taken to its own limitations especially in regards to security, specialized processes and workflows, and unique information management.

As we see more business apps evolving into more social components, cloud application platforms are going to need to not only be multi-tenant, but also feature community tenancies.

You still want to maintain segmentation between companies (i.e. tenancies), but you also want to be able to leverage the greater user community as a whole.

Let’s take the federal government as an example. They might have a private cloud in which each department has their own focused tenant. This lets them keep their apps specialized for their own tasks, while also leverages a common architecture and any core apps. But they would also benefit from a bit of cross pollination. Exchanging ideas, working with partners, even internal workforce crowdsourcing. A community tenancy with those kind of applications in mind would be necessary.

So rather than use yet another platform for community apps, your cloud app platform should be ready to support both multi-tenant as well as community tenancies.

Technorati Tags: cloud computing, multitenancy, private cloud, saas, software-as-a-service

The Inc. magazine has ranked LongJump as one of their Inc.5000 of fastest growing private companies. LongJump and its leading cloud application platform is positioned at #1090 overall including #74 of software companies and #23 in the San Jose Metro Area.

Says Inc. president Bob LaPointe:

“The leaders of the companies on this year’s Inc. 5000 have figured out how to grow their businesses during the longest recession since the Great Depression. The 2010 Inc. 5000 showcases a particularly hardy group of entrepreneurs.”

According to Inc.500, the 2010 Inc. 500|5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2006 to 2009.

Technorati Tags: bob lapointe, inc 500, inc magazine, PaaS, Sales and CRM

For enterprises and ISVs, it has become more important than ever to support a global workforce. In fact, according to AnythingResearch.com, the translation and interpretation services industry is a $2.7 billion market that has grown an average of 22 percent a year since 2004. The main thrust is the need for U.S. military and businesses expanding overseas as well as the healthcare industry.

Whether you need an application to deliver software solutions in Portuguese, French, or Klingon, chances are the challenge is not so much in software development or even the translation but in having a multi-tenant SaaS platform that can support translation of enterprise-class, web-based applications. In fact, a PaaS architecture is ideal for such requirements.

With LongJump, each individual user can access the platform user interface in their own language, and language definitions are defined at the tenant level. Through the Translation Workbench, you can define new languages and replace all UI labels and alerts based on the selected language.

LongJump’s Bulk Translation and Localization Process

If you’re creating an entire tenant from scratch and want to include support for multiple languages, LongJump provides a fast way to perform bulk translation.

1. LongJump exports all existing UI labels to a CSV file
2. The Enterprise or ISV can then translate the entire contents of the file themselves or take it to a translation firm for interpretation
3. With the new labels, you upload the file back in and choose a name for the language
4. That language then becomes available to the tenant and each individual user can choose it

When you need to update through the bulk process, the new entries will simply overwrite the existing ones. LongJump also provides support for plurals.

Incremental Translation Process

As changes occur to the platform, you might add a new object, process or field for example. Rather than performing a bulk translation process, you can dive into the Translation Workbench and choose the element and then the specific term. We’ve organized the application model into elements for easier reference.

Developer Controls for Translation

One last aspect to LongJump’s Translation Workbench capabilities is allowing the code developer to access the translated elements. The Ajax API, Java API and REST API all support the ability to retrieve the localized message labels. While coding still occurs in the native English, all the presentation results can be displayed based on the language you want.

Technorati Tags: application development, localization tools, PaaS, saas, software localization, software translation, software translation tools

While we don’t usually review books on this blog, the Manga Guide to Databases deserves some serious attention for LongJump users. Those who are just getting started with relational database design and data modeling will find this guide to be entertaining and extremely comprehensive. And even the most seasoned DB gurus can appreciate just how accessible this guide is. Some of our LongJump engineers are already looking to buy copies for their kids.

Of course this book focuses on very bare bones database development, covering everything from entity-relationship diagramming to database security to data sharing and scalability issues (much of which LongJump’s Platform-as-a-Service handles natively without having to write SQL or having to architect a database infrastructure). Still, the courseware provides real “fantasy” world examples complete with theory and exercises, and it does so with humor and clarity.

In fact, this unique approach to learning definitely puts the fun back in the fundamentals. Here’s hoping they develop a Manga Guide to REST Web Services!

Technorati Tags: database, manga, rdbms, relational data, sql

Developing web applications for business with Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions is like fitting users with a tailored suit for a special occasion.

As a developer you are the tailor, with access to configuration-ready suits and the ability to make edits to a suit as needed. You work with your customer, understand their needs, and guide them to the right configuration for their purpose. You help them try on the closest suit possible to what they need, and then you do your finishing work after you’ve met. When your customer comes back, together you try on the fitted suit and hopefully it is exactly what they need at that time. As that customer grows (or shrinks), you can help modify the suit so they get the most life out if it as possible.

What don’t you do? You don’t weave and dye your own fabric. You don’t re-invent cuts or create your own button holes. You don’t make your own buttons. In short, you don’t start from scratch. The result is that suits are made faster and relatively less expensively, and your customer gets what they want.

Agile Developing for the Enterprise Using PaaS

As more businesses and organizations begin to adopt agile methodologies to improve customer responsiveness and rapidly develop applications, it would seem that software tools have to be agile-ready. So far, most of the focus on those agile tools happens to be on the project management and delivery lifecycle phases, but what about the actual development of applications? Developers must examine how application creation tools can best support agile software development as a business strategy.

One example that comes to mind is the development of internal business applications. In the past, it was virtually impossible to build custom, enterprise-grade applications for every department. Now, because the current generation of users is so web savvy, having to deal with hard-coded legacy database applications and spreadsheets is not only ill-conceived and impossible to manage, it can ultimately lead to increases in operating costs and be rife with error.

The primary response from IT organizations has been to decouple the information from the application. Such is the nature of SOA/XML. That’s fine for the IT developer, but completely unusable from a departmental end-user standpoint – the people who have to use the data and face the information management challenges on a daily basis. They still have to rely on an in-house development resource or highly paid consultant to get to that data in a meaningful way that integrates with their work processes.

PaaS can be the ideal solution to solve that problem by making it extremely easy to design, develop, adapt and service web-based applications, while leveraging a comprehensive enterprise-class service environment. It is so easy to build apps that a significant amount of development and changes can be realized in a single meeting or overnight. This gives the user access to new functionality almost immediately. And very savvy users can even make the modifications themselves – simply by changing configuration options – offloading minor development tasks from the coders.

Our new whitepaper “PaaS and Agile Development: The Application Platform for Enterprise Transformation” covers everything a CIO, software product manager, scrum master, or architect needs to know about leveraging PaaS as part of an Agile strategy.

Technorati Tags: agile development, agile manifesto, agile processes, application development, cloud computing, extreme programming, PaaS, Platform-as-a-Service

One of the most critical features in LongJump’s Platform-as-a-Service for enabling paperless workflow and audit compliance is the use of digital signatures.

For government entities, compliance-heavy industries like healthcare and manufacturing, or even the growing Green Tech verticals, LongJump provides built-in support for digitally signing records to reduce paperwork while dramatically improving accountability. An example of when lack of certified oversight and accountability is a problem? How about test records from the oil spill in the Gulf? Without secured, certified processes in place, it’s going to be difficult to identify points of failure and establish liability.

The short video below provides an overview of how the Digital Signatures work.

To use digital signatures in LongJump, here is what you need to know:

• Signatures can be encrypted using public, private or certificate keys and provide complete control for compliance and audit requirements, such as those defined in the FDA’s CFR Part 11 or the EPA’s ECHO.
• Digital Signatures are set up by selecting specific fields that are signed for. For example, in a approval of meeting a test record with digital signature settings in place, you can set up a hierarchy of signature areas where the submitter must first sign the record before the user’s manager can access and sign the record.
• LongJump enables you to define who can sign a record by limiting who can see and edit the document based on their role, team, or specific users.
• When signing a document, users are asked for their password and pass phrase.
• A single record can also have multiple signing blocks consisting of fields and multiple users can sign a document as part of an approval process.
• Once a signature is in place, those fields cannot be modified without voiding the signature.

Of course, like all LongJump web-based applications, you will be able to easily report on records, as well as create policies for when signed documents do or do not meet certain conditions. LongJump also keeps a log on signature related activities for a complete audit trail.

You can learn more about enabling the digital signature feature from the Support Wiki.

Technorati Tags: bp, digital signature, epa, fda, gulf oil spill, PaaS

We wanted to congratulate SEAL Innotech, one of LongJump’s ISV customers on our PaaS (platform as a service), for launching their mobile SAP and ERP solution into the market.

SEAL Mobile and Mash-up Micro-Apps are lightweight enterprise applications providing a secure access to on-premise and/or cloud enterprise applications via simple interfaces for common tasks. These are available across various business domains from Supply-Chain, Logistics, Procurement and Manufacturing to Financials, HR, CRM and Performance management.

Their Micro-Apps are delivered to mobile platforms like the Blackberry, iPhone and Google Android.

You can visit them at SAPPHIRE in Orlando, booth #721 for a demo.

If you want to learn how they were able to get to market so fast, you can attend our next Ziff Davis Enterprise eSeminar May 26 at 1PM Eastern.

Technorati Tags: android, blackberry, cloud computing, custom applications, erp, iphone, isv, PaaS, saas, sap, sapphire

LongJump Version 7.0 provides PaaS with comprehensive solution to build, brand and bill web-based applications

LongJump, a leading Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) software provider, announced the availability of Version 7.0 of their application platform which adds a range of collaboration capabilities for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications. This new release focuses on helping ISVs (independent software vendors), their developers, distributor and partner channels, and customers collaborate seamlessly with each other within the platform.

Says LongJump CEO Pankaj Malviya:

“SaaS technology vendors today must address the fact that web users all want to work better together. LongJump Version 7 provides a premier platform for addressing social networking, community building, and collaboration that naturally extends into enterprise business applications.”

You can read the entire press release here.

Technorati Tags: developers, isv, PaaS, saas, var

We’ve introduced a new library of videos that cover the deep set of features within LongJump’s public and private cloud PaaS. Over time, this library will be extended and refined so that businesses, developers, partners and ISVs interested in LongJump’s SaaS application platform can quickly watch a short video on the features that matter to them most.

You can watch these videos from our website at http://www.longjump.com and by clicking on Video Tour on any of the web pages.

The library covers the platform’s major areas including:

• Application Design
• Development
• Reports
• Access Controls
• Productivity Features
• Personalization
• Release Management
• Distribution
• Maintenance

The videos are also available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/LongJumpVid.

Of course, no video can do what a live demo can, so you can also contact us for a complete walk-thru or sign-up for a free trial.

Technorati Tags: application development, cloud computing, PaaS, Platform-as-a-Service, saas

Recognized for creating new opportunities in cloud computing and SaaS

SUNNYVALE, CA, April 16, 2010 — LongJump, a leading provider of software that powers Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), today announced that it has been chosen by AlwaysOn as one of the OnDemand Top 100 winners. Inclusion in the OnDemand 100 signifies leadership amongst its peers and game-changing approaches and technologies that are likely to disrupt existing markets and entrenched players. LongJump was specially selected by the AlwaysOn editorial team and industry experts spanning the globe based on a set of five criteria: innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value, and media buzz.

View the complete release here.

Technorati Tags: alwayson, cloud computing, PaaS, saas, software-as-a-service