Transcend Computing Announces Beta Launch of StackStudio and StackPlace

Transcend Computing, an innovator in Amazon Compatible Environments (ACE) for public, private and hybrid cloud computing, recently announced beta launch of StackStudio and StackPlace. The solutions are available as a web-based service. StackStudio is offered in both free and paid editions whereas StackPlace is open and free of charge for both contributors and consumers of ACE stacks.

StackStudio enables architects and designers to quickly create multi-tiered applications by dragging out services, setting properties and connecting them together. With StackStudio, the users can create full application topologies that are ready-to-run as AWS CloudFormation Templates. They can also add custom software packages with Puppet or Chef and use Multi-Region Images to ensure a globally consistent environment.

“We believe that Amazon Web Services (News - Alert) has defined the de facto approach to cloud computing, which will endure as the industry standard for public, private and hybrid clouds,” said Jeff Schneider, founder of Transcend Computing, in a recent press release. “At the heart of this standard is CloudFormation, which is a model-driven example for how complex application architectures should be described and managed.”

On the other hand, StackPlace is a community site for sharing templates (or stacks) used to orchestrate the provisioning of modern cloud applications consisting of IaaS and PaaS elements. The current stacks adhere to the Amazon CloudFormation syntax and can be provisioned through users’ AWS account.

“Transcend can help catalyze adoption of the ACE environments by making it easy to create and share Amazon-compatible stacks. In doing so, the Amazon APIs become the lingua franca for application portability between public and private cloud environments, which helps both consumers and providers of public and private cloud services by creating a level playing field,” Schneider added.