Zembly
| Industry | Software development platform |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2008 |
| Founder | Sun Microsystems |
| Defunct | 2009 |
| Fate | Ceased operations |
| Headquarters | Menlo Park, California , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Web-based development platform for social applications |
| Owner | Sun Microsystems |
| Parent | Sun Microsystems |
Zembly (presented as zembly) was a web-based development platform created by Sun Microsystems that facilitated collaborative programming for applications targeting Facebook, Meebo, OpenSocial, iPhone web applications, among other social networks and web widgets. Its social networking capabilities enabled users to jointly create software. The platform was active between 2008 and 2009.
In addition to serving as a development environment, zembly supported the integration of Web APIs (RESTful web services) both inside applications and externally through its open-source client library, which included bindings for Java and JavaFx. This approach provided a unified programming interface across multiple API sources.
By merging conventional IDE functionalities—such as an advanced scripting editor—with wiki-style collaboration and social networking elements, zembly introduced a novel method for developing smaller-scale applications. Deployment, hosting, and scaling of applications were managed automatically on its cloud infrastructure.
Architecture
Zembly was part of Sun Microsystems' cloud computing division, with its website and developer applications hosted on the compute cloud provided by Network.com. The underlying technology primarily utilized Sun products: Solaris 10, Java, the GlassFish application server, and MySQL. The platform operated on a horizontally scalable cluster composed of Sun Fire T2000 ("Niagara") and X4500 ("Thumper") servers, supported by Apache and memcached. Furthermore, zembly both integrated with and contributed to the development of Mozilla Bespin.
Closure
In November 2009, it was announced that zembly would cease operations on November 30, 2009, resulting in the discontinuation of all hosted applications. This decision led to dissatisfaction among some developers due to the lack of open-source release of the platform’s codebase.
Further reading
- Anderson, Gail; Anderson, Paul; Fast, Todd; Webster, Christopher (December 29, 2008). Prentice Hall. . Assemble the Social Web with zembly.