ActiveState Introduces Stackato Support for Heroku Buildpacks

VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwire - Jun 19, 2012) - ActiveState, whose software enables developers and enterprises to innovate from code to cloud, today announced that Stackato, the application platform for creating a private Platform as a Service (PaaS), now supports Heroku buildpacks. The new feature enables Heroku public cloud customers to experience the same ease of use with a private PaaS and to easily extend or move their app environments to a private cloud.

Heroku calls upon buildpacks -- scripts typically stored in an online hosting service like GitHub -- to configure its cloud platform to host specific applications and frameworks. Stackato can now use those same buildpack scripts for application deployment. This means that enterprises or developers who use Heroku can switch to a Stackato private PaaS without having to create new scripts or recode existing apps. Stackato is the first Cloud Foundry-based PaaS solution to offer this compatibility.

"Cloud computing is about choice," said Bart Copeland, CEO at ActiveState. "We're working to make it easier for Heroku customers to do what's right for their businesses. Apps that run on Heroku now run on Stackato. We've lowered switching costs, giving Heroku customers flexibility in an environment dictated by vendor lock-in. They can stay within Heroku's public PaaS boundaries, or they can migrate easily to a more-secure Stackato private PaaS."

With this move, ActiveState is targeting developers and enterprises that have outgrown their Heroku public clouds. Organizations will evolve from Heroku to Stackato because they need tighter control, portability in times of service disruption, better regulatory compliance (as in the example of data sovereignty mandates for international subsidiaries), and stronger data security than a public, shared multi-tenant cloud architecture can provide.

"We built this capability because customers demanded it," Copeland said. "Growing enterprises want more privacy, stability, oversight and control than a public PaaS can ultimately deliver. Stackato lets Heroku customers customize their cloud environments to incorporate private PaaS, effectively securing each of their individual applications within its own Stackato container."

Stackato is the application platform for creating a private PaaS. From the desktop to the datacenter, Stackato makes it easy to develop, deploy, migrate, scale, manage and monitor applications in any cloud environment. In addition to Heroku buildpack support, its most recent update includes support for persistent file systems, user group administration and an advanced app store framework.

About ActiveState (http://www.activestate.com)
ActiveState empowers innovation from code to cloud smarter, safer, and faster. ActiveState's cutting-edge solutions give developers and enterprises the power and flexibility to develop in Java, Ruby, Python, Perl, Node.js, PHP, Tcl, and more. Stackato is ActiveState's groundbreaking application platform for creating a private platform as a service (PaaS), and is the cost-effective, secure, and portable way to develop and deploy apps to the cloud. ActiveState is proven for the enterprise: More than two million developers and 97% of Fortune-1000 companies use ActiveState's end-to-end solutions to develop, distribute, and manage their software applications. Global customers like Cisco, CA, HP, Bank of America, Siemens, and Lockheed Martin look to ActiveState to save time, save money, minimize risk, ensure compliance, and reduce time to market.