Friday, April 11, 2008

Google App Engine Now Open

Google on Tuesday announced its new Google App Engine, and opened a preview version to the first 10,000 users to sign up. The service essentially does for Web apps what Google Blogger does for bloggers: provides a hosting solution for Web developers to build their apps on top of, integrating with other Google services and sparing developers the trouble of server maintenance and scalability. Basically, Google wants to be your (free) sysadmin.

As Google says in Tuesday's press release, "The goal is to make it easier for web developers to build and scale applications, instead of focusing on system administration and maintenance." This looks to be a good way to counteract the "TechCrunch Effect"—server slowdown in the early days due to the traffic crush from early adopters. Google App Engine gives users enough CPU power and bandwidth to handle around 5 million page views per month.

The other benefit Google touts is easy integration with other Google services, through both built-in components and Google's APIs.

The first 10,000 registrants will get access to Google App Engine and 500MB of storage for free. More storage and bandwidth will be available for purchase at a later date. As of right now, there are still spots open for registrants, so go claim yours.

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