Cloud Foundry

Cloud Foundry Foundation
Company type	Nonprofit organization (501(c)(6))
Industry	Cloud computing, Platform as a service
Predecessor	VMware, Pivotal Software
Founded	January 2015; 11 years ago
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Derek Collison (original VMware team leader)
Owner	Community governed under Cloud Foundry Foundation
Parent	Linux Foundation Collaborative Project

Cloud Foundry is an open source, multi-cloud application platform as a service (PaaS) managed by the Cloud Foundry Foundation, a 501(c)(6) entity.

Initially created by VMware, the software was later transferred to Pivotal Software—a collaboration between EMC, VMware, and General Electric—before being handed over to the Cloud Foundry Foundation in 2015.

History

The origin of Cloud Foundry dates back to 2009 when a VMware team led by Derek Collison developed it under the name Project B29. This project followed an unrelated Java-based PaaS also called Cloud Foundry, which was founded by Chris Richardson in 2008 and acquired by SpringSource in 2009. After VMware acquired SpringSource that same year, the current initiative adopted the Cloud Foundry name following the conclusion of the original SpringSource project.

Cloud Foundry was publicly introduced in April 2011. One year later, in April 2012, BOSH—a toolset designed for release engineering, deployment, and lifecycle management of extensive distributed systems—was released. In April 2013, Pivotal was formed from EMC and VMware to commercialize assets such as Cloud Foundry, RabbitMQ, and Spring Framework.

By February 2014, intentions to create an open governance foundation were announced, initially including seven Platinum and two Gold members. The membership base expanded with eight additional companies in May 2014 and reached 40 members by December of the same year.

Cloud Foundry Foundation

The Cloud Foundry Foundation was launched in January 2015 as an independent nonprofit 501(c)(6) Linux Foundation Collaborative Project.

Following its establishment, all Cloud Foundry software—including source code and trademarks—was assigned to the Foundation. Development primarily occurs using Ruby, Go, and Java. By February 2019, the Foundation's membership had grown to 65 organizations.

Serving as a neutral steward for all Cloud Foundry intellectual property, the Foundation ensures contributions become its property under 501(c)(6) regulations that prevent transfer to commercial entities. It holds trademarks and copyrights for the community’s collective output and maintains licenses to use and re-license all code contributions, though individual copyrights remain with contributors.

Usage

Cloud Foundry facilitates continuous delivery by supporting the entire application development process—from coding through testing to deployment. Its container-based design allows applications written in any language to run across various cloud providers, enabling organizations to quickly choose or switch cloud environments without altering their applications.

Services

Applications on Cloud Foundry connect to external resources through the Open Service Broker API, introduced in December 2016.

External dependencies like databases and messaging platforms are classified as services. Administrators can establish a service marketplace for on-demand provisioning. When deploying applications, necessary services can be specified, with credentials automatically injected into environment variables.

Software

The Cloud Foundry Foundation governs the development of Cloud Foundry through a structured process that includes participation from its member organizations.

The platform’s source code is distributed under the Apache License 2.0, while contributions from both individuals and companies are regulated by contributor license agreements.

Cloud Foundry employs a container-centric architecture and promotes container technology advancements by collaborating with standards such as the Open Container Initiative (OCI) and Container Network Interface (CNI).

The buildpack lifecycle facilitates support for a range of programming languages and frameworks, including:

Language	Framework
Java	Spring
Ruby	Rails, Sinatra
JavaScript	Node.js
.NET	.NET Framework
.NET Core	.NET Core Framework
Python	Python
PHP	PHP
Go	Go

In addition to buildpacks, Cloud Foundry enables deployment of applications packaged as Docker images through its Docker lifecycle support.

The Cloud Foundry Application Runtime can be installed on various infrastructure platforms, including VMware’s vSphere, OpenStack, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, Google Cloud Platform, SAP Cloud Platform, and Alibaba Cloud. This is achieved by utilizing the Cloud Provider Interface (CPI) component of the BOSH project. It is important to note that support for Cloud Foundry on IBM Cloud was discontinued in October 2022.

For development purposes on local machines, Cloud Foundry can be set up using a BOSH-Lite environment with a Vagrant virtual machine.

Platform

Offered as open-source software by the Cloud Foundry Foundation and as commercial products or services by various vendors, the Cloud Foundry platform relies on the open-source deployment tool BOSH, which is maintained by the Foundation.

In December 2015, the Foundation introduced the “Cloud Foundry PaaS Certification program” to define standards for providers seeking official certification as Cloud Foundry Certified Providers.

External links