You might know that I used to work at Microsoft. Well, I returned to Microsoft’s offices to meet with Joseph Hofstader, architect evangelist in Microsoft’s communications sector, to announce a new collaboration between Rackspace Cloud and Microsoft.
Today the two companies launch the Rackspace Cloud Plug-In for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. There are 6 million .NET developers worldwide, and this plug-in will allow them to seamlessly extend development and deployment to Rackspace Cloud Servers for Windows. Visual Studios is a widely used product that has been around (in one form or another) for about 20 years, so it’s great that .NET developers will be able to harness the scalability and flexibility of the Cloud for their apps, right from an interface they know well.
So if you’re an app developer, what does this new functionality mean for you? “It really allows you manage your Rackspace Cloud environment right from the IDE [integrated development environment] itself,” says Hofstader. “So instead of having to learn a whole set of technologies or unfamiliar environments to manage your virtualized servers—to change the number of instances, to really manage your environment—you can do that right from your own Visual Studio environment. And then have it automatically updated in the cloud.”
The plug-in is a big plus for .NET developers. “You could do Microsoft development by using other IDEs or you could use Notepad or something like that,” explains Hofstader, “but over the last 20 years, Microsoft has spent a lot of time and money simplifying the developer experience. Our millions of developers globally have become very used to using these technologies, and by extending it in a way that provides access to the Rackspace Cloud, it lowers the barrier for entry for a Windows developer. Rackspace can then say, ‘Hey, we understand this developer community, and we’ve created tools to make you innovate on our platform.’”
“It’s ultimately all about choice,” says Hofstader. “It’s about choice within your platform itself, and what is the best environment for the solution that you’re developing.”
More info:
Rackspace Cloud Plug-In for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010: http://tools.rackspacecloud.com/applications/rackspace-cloud-visual-studio-2010-plug-in
Joseph Hofstader’s blog post about the Rackspace Cloud plug-in: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/joe_hofstader/
Rackspace press release about the Plug-In for Microsoft Visual Studio: http://www.rackspace.com/information/newsroom/pressreleases/Rackspace-Hosting-Embraces-Cloud-Developers-with-Rackspace-Cloud-Plug-In-for-Microsoft-Visual-Studio-2010/
Microsoft Visual Studio: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us