Jos Uijterwaal, CFO, Cloud9 IDE

SuperNova Award Category

Technology Optimization & Innovation

Your Company

Cloud9 IDE is a powerful, open source, online application development environment that can be used anywhere, anytime developed by Cloud9.io. The modern and secure IDE helps developers write applications in Javascript, Node.js, as well as HTML, CSS, PHP, Java, Ruby and 23 other languages.

The Problem

As a startup in a hyper-competitive space in a challenging economic climate, Cloud9 had to make a decision on what infrastructure to base their business on.  They could buy, run, and host their own compute servers to provide the backend infrastructure for their application platform.  Or they could use an Infrastructure-as-a-Service Cloud to get automated access to compute resources that they would then have to configure and manage.  Or they could look at a Platform-as-a-Service solution that could provide much of the automation and elasticity that they needed in a self-service fashion.  The outcome of this decision could drastically impact their business cost structure, their application development effort and budget, and even their end-user experience, so they needed to choose wisely.

The Solution

Cloud9 chose to base their business on the public PaaS offering, OpenShift Online by Red Hat. By leveraging the automation, elasticity, and self-service of OpenShift Online as the back-end for their cloud-based IDE platform, Cloud9 was able to have confidence that as their business grew, their underlying infrastructure would be able to scale to handle the increased load.  Cloud9 chose OpenShift for its open source core, the speed and responsiveness of its automated scaling, and its widest offering of programming languages to complement Cloud9 IDE’s selection, including JavaEE6 and JBoss EAP.

The Results

Cloud9 has seen tremendous growth as one of the premier cloud-based application development environments, moving from 378,000 to 731,710 apps created on Cloud9 during the deployment period. The OpenShift infrastructure underneath has scaled seamlessly to support this growth.  Leveraging the power of PaaS, Cloud9 has been able to focus on building the best user experience for their developer customers and not worry about managing servers and infrastructure.

The Technology

OpenShift Online is Red Hat’s public cloud application development and hosting platform that automates the provisioning, management and scaling of applications so developers can quickly deploy and scale their apps. Since its developer preview in 2011, more than 1 million applications have been created on OpenShift Online, and the platform now offers access to technical support and additional resources from Red Hat’s top Linux administrators and JBoss developers for a monthly fee. A wide range of projects created on the OpenShift software is displayed in the OpenShift Application Gallery, found at https://www.openshift.com/application-gallery.

Metrics Matter

OpenShift Online now also allows Cloud9 IDE users to run any executable, originally only running NodeJS support, but users can now run Ruby, PHP, or even C++ applications either compiled or in batch groups. Cloud9 estimates that there are now close to 100,000 different workspaces in use since deployment.

Disruptive Factor

The combination of Cloud9 IDE and OpenShift Online allows developers leverage the cloud for both coding and running their applications.  From Cloud9's IDE, developers can deploy and run applications on OpenShift. Enterprises, startups, independent software vendors and freelance developers have now incorporated Cloud9 IDE into their development workflow, aided by OpenShift Online’s flexible deployment model.

Shining Moment

Cloud9 experienced significant cost-savings for their startup by investing in a PaaS to build their web application instead of a costly infrastructure, a crucial decision as they were able to focus on user experience and minimize costs. They saved several thousand dollars by using PaaS and leveraging the application density and efficiency that is intrinsic to OpenShift’s architecture.

About Cloud9 IDE

In two years from now you will be developing 100% in the cloud. Your files will no longer be on your laptop and when you need help debugging a problem, your remote colleague can access your workspace just as easy as the guy sitting next to you. Setting up your environment took mere seconds and it’s always in sync with the requirements of the app you’re building. You can access your IDE from any device, so when that creative moment hits (or when you need to fix that urgent issue) you can immediately execute, wherever you are.

Cloud9 IDE is a leading cloud-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that enables web and mobile developers to work together and collaborate in remote teams anywhere, anytime. Cloud9 IDE is an online development platform for JavaScript, Node.js, Ruby, PHP and Python applications, which offers syntax highlighting support for HTML, CSS, and 99 additional programming languages. Cloud9 IDE is open source, enabling developers to freely customize their environment according to their preference.

Founded in 2010 and based in San Francisco and Amsterdam, Cloud9 IDE is a privately held company backed by Accel Partners and Atlassian. Learn more at http://c9.io.