Adobe Cloud Computing now available!

It is official! We're live and open - http://livecycle.express.adobe.com. Adobe LiveCycle ES running on the cloud. How cool is that? Very!

How it works:

LiveCycle ES has both a server component and a desktop workbench. Workbench is configured to talk to the server and the server knows the context of how to talk back to the workbench. In the cloud configuration, a small application called LC DX (Developer Express) sits on the same machine and intercepts all communications to localhost: and translates it to speak to the corresponding LC ES server instance in the cloud. It actually talks to a proxy on the other end so neither the server nor workbench are aware of where the other is. In fact, they both think they are talking to their counterpart at a different location so there is no complexity. Brilliant, simple and clean architecture!

The 1.1 release of Adobe LiveCycle ES Developer Express introduces support for LiveCycle ES 8.2.1 running on Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition within Amazon EC2, using JBoss 4.2.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express. The new Windows-based virtual instances can be selected in the instance type pulldown menu of the "Start Instance" dialog. I blogged earlier about this here:
http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2009/01/adobe-cloud-computing-livecycle-es.html

Here is the screenshot:



The Windows-based virtual instances of LiveCycle ES are configured with all of the same features as the existing RedHat Linux-based virtual images, including support for BAM, Contentspace, and PDF Generation using OpenOffice. The backup/restore behavior of the Windows-based virtual instances is identical to the behavior of the existing RedHat Linux-based instances.

The 1.1 release also contains a collection of bug fixes and usability improvements.

The LiveCycle Express Networking Application (client) has been updated to include a TCP port forwarding rule for Remote Desktop connections to the new Windows-based virtual instances. With the networking application connected to the instance, Remote Desktop connections can be made to "localhost:3390".