What is the "Cloud" anyways?

The 'Cloud' is a new way to think about your back-end computing needs. Rather than worrying about where to host your web sites, how to configure your web server, and how to set up additional services, the Cloud enables you to push all of these concerns and worries to someone else, and more importantly, somewhere else. It's all handled for you on the internet, dynamically and completely managed. In short, all of your technology needs on the back-end are handled for you as a service, much like your electric or phone bill. Sometimes, this is also referred to as 'Cloud Computing' [1]. The Cloud enables you to save time, money and headaches.

What is Aptana Cloud?

Aptana Cloud provides scalable PHP, MySQL, Apache and Aptana Jaxer app platforms as a service. Production and staging environments are both provided out of the box. In addition multiple software as a service solutions are provided supporting the entirety of your application lifecycle: from development to deployment to management and monitoring. To make this the ultimate in ease, these solutions are also integrated directly into the workflows of Aptana Studio. These software services include hosted source control (SVN), team member management, database tools, one-click backups, web stats and site performance statistics, and an active monitoring and alert system that will notify you of key events in the system when they happen.

The result is the ultimate in ease and efficiency -- an integrated development platform that puts the power of cloud computing to work for you, and costing far less to operate than doing it yourself.

What does it cost? What's the pricing?

The Cloud software and tools are free. All you pay for is what you use after you set up your site, app or project in the Cloud. Pricing starts at a mere 4 cents an hour for 256 MB of RAM, 5GB of storage, and a terabyte of bandwidth. But more importantly Cloud saves you time and money. There's no set up time or cost. Just deploy and go! And even before you go live and scale Cloud saves you time and money by providing hosted source control, staging servers, and team collaboration tools -- all integrated right into Aptana Studio / Eclipse.

Why choose Aptana Cloud over computing utilities like Amazon EC2?

We think computing utilities are a great idea. In fact Aptana Cloud is built to compliment them. When you use Aptana Cloud you not only get the on-demand scalability from such computing utilties, you also get pre-configured app stacks ready to run your apps, Cloud management tools integrated right into your IDE, and access to hosted source control and staging servers that help you work more efficiently with your team and customers. And with pricing starting at 4 cents an hour, 60% less than Amazon EC2's starting prices, it just makes sense.

Why choose Aptana Cloud over old-fashioned ISP or VPS hosting services?

With Cloud the inefficiencies of working with VPS and traditional hosts are a thing of the past. Instead of mere FTP or SSH accounts to a server with fixed capacities, Aptana Cloud gives you the on-demand scalability of Cloud computing, plus services like source control, team management and staging that integrate right into your IDE and workflow. At less than $1 a day to start, you earn back your investment fast and avoid the typical headaches of VPS through the end-to-end ease of Aptana Cloud. (And yes you get SSH and SFTP too!)

Why did Aptana choose Joyent as its first cloud computing infrastructure provider for Aptana Cloud?

Joyent serves over 1 billion page views a month, including some of the largest Facebook apps out there. There are now over 4000 PHP apps running on Joyent and their expertise in hosted Ruby on Rails environments is renowned. Unlike Amazon, though they intend to get there, Joyent provides static IP addresses which many of our customers told us they wanted. In addition, the modularity of Joyent's data center enabled us to pass lower entry level prices directly through to you -- up to 60% lower compared to Amazon EC2's entry level pricing.

Will you ever support other cloud computing providers like Amazon EC2 or Google App Engine?

We've conceived Aptana Cloud such that in the future we will be able to support additional backend providers. This will be based on customer demand.

What servers and services are available on my deployed site?

Your Cloud site comes with Apache, MySQL, PHP, Postfix (SMTP).

Is Aptana Studio required to use the Aptana Cloud Service?

Studio is required to deploy and manage your Cloud sites, but we provide full SSH, SFTP, and SVN access to your site outside of Studio.

How 'portable' are my apps if I decide later to not use Aptana Cloud?

Aptana Cloud's PHP, mySQL, and Apache app stacks are all open source app stacks that you can either set up yourself, or are supported by other hosting service providers as well. That means we have to provide extra value to you to earn your business, and we think you're just going to love Aptana Cloud's ease so much, you'll never want to switch (but you can). In fact you can cancel at anytime. Our standard pricing includes no long term contracts or up-front commitments.

How do I change the credit card used for my Aptana Cloud site?

There are two parts to changing the credit card, adding a new card to your account and changing the association in Aptana Billing.

Adding a Credit Card

  1. Open My Account to the Billings tab
  2. Click the Add Credit Card button
  3. Complete the Add Credit Card form and click the Add Credit Card button

Changing the Association

  1. Open My Cloud to the Settings tab for the site
  2. Click the Use a different card link in the Summary section
  3. Select the new card to be used from the Choose a new credit card dropdown menu
  4. Click the Apply Changes button

You may also change the card associated with a site in Aptana Billing, but only using a card already added in Studio:

  1. Open a web browser to https://billing.aptana.com
  2. Select the Sites tab
  3. Select the site from your list of sites
  4. Select the new card to be used from the dropdown menu

I am a Ruby developer, do you offer a solution for me on the Cloud?

Yes! We now support Ruby and Rails development in Aptana Cloud, leveraging the popular Aptana RadRails plugin for Aptana Studio / Eclipse. To learn more about how to deploy a Rails site on the Cloud, watch the screencast.

I am a Python developer, do you offer a solution for me on the Cloud?

Our roadmap includes supporting Python development in a future release of Aptana Cloud leveraging the popular Aptana Pydev plugin for Aptana Studio / Eclipse.

Is SSH and SFTP access provided?

In addition to the Aptana Cloud views in Aptana Studio, full access to your Cloud site is available via SSH, SFTP, and SVN.

Can I suspend my Cloud site?

Aptana does not offer a suspended state service at this time. Instead we recommend this:

Now:

  1. Use the backup function on the My Cloud Overview tab
  2. Copy the backup file to your local disk
  3. Delete the site

Ready to go again:

  1. Create a new site
  2. Restore from the backup