Acorn Labs today launched a public beta version of its development environment accessible via the cloud. This makes it easier to build cloud-native applications at a higher level of abstraction without having to be familiar with how Kubernetes clusters work.
Acorn services deployed on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud are sandboxed environments based on open source Acorn images created using frameworks developed by Acorn Labs, with access to up to 4 GB of RAM. for up to 2 hours. This framework provides access to a higher level of abstraction that makes it easier to build and deploy applications on Kubernetes clusters as an alternative to tools such as Docker Compose.
Shannon Williams, president of Acorn Labs, said the immediate goal is to provide developers with access to cloud services that make it easier to experiment with building applications using Acorn images that comply with the Open Container Initiative (OCI) specification. I said that this is true. Therefore, these images can be stored in any registry.
According to Williams, Acorn images built from Acorn files require significantly less cognitive load for developers to create. The overall goal is to accelerate the pace of building and deploying cloud-native applications, he added. The current approaches used to build these applications require a lot of heavy lifting, he said.
In addition, Acorn Labs is making available professional accounts that make it easier for developers to collaborate with each other using application templates that are accessed by calling a URL, he added. While running, he also has his Acorn Dev Mode, which provides direct access to Acorn applications, syncs real-time changes, attaches a debugger, and displays live logs. This feature not only simplifies onboarding, but also allows you to create production instances in minutes.
The Acorn service also provides a command line interface (CLI) along with a set of DevOps tools for monitoring, logging, and secret management through a central management console.
Acorn images first became available in 2022, but the tools necessary to give developers access to Acorn images as an alternative to their existing container images are just now becoming available. In fact, Acorn Labs aims to strike a balance between simplifying building applications with images without requiring organizations to adopt an overly opinionated platform-as-a-service (PaaS) environment. Williams said.
It’s unclear to what extent development teams are willing to replace existing tools to build cloud-native applications, but with an increasing focus on developer productivity, many organizations are looking to build applications faster. We’re looking for ways to build and deploy at scale.
As always, the challenge is to allow time for developers to familiarize themselves with alternative approaches to building applications. This may also require adjustments to her DevOps workflow used to deploy applications.
However, as organizations seek to replace monolithic applications that are typically difficult to update and more expensive to run, they must somehow improve the speed of development and deployment of cloud-native applications.