The Application Packaging Standard (APS) is a standard that defines a technology for integrating

application software Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a ...

with hosting platforms. Integration of an application with hosting platforms is implemented by creating an ''APS package'' for this application, and APS package deployment creates an ''APS application''.

Participants

APS involves three types of participants into the integration process: *

Independent software vendor An independent software vendor (ISV), also known as a software publisher, is an organization specializing in making and selling software, as opposed to computer hardware, designed for mass or niche markets. This is in contrast to in-house softw ...

s (ISVs) use APS to make their applications available to numerous hosting providers and through them to huge number of customers. This is an effective way to convert an application to

SaaS Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is co ...

. * Hosting providers need APS to extend the list of hosted services and integrate them to each other thus making their services much more valuable and attractive for their customers. *

Customers In sales, commerce, and economics, a customer (sometimes known as a client, buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a good, service, product or an idea - obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier via a financial transaction or exchange f ...

get benefit of consuming APS application services.

Versions

APS went through two stages. APS 1 emerged as a way for creating predominantly two types of APS packages and respectively two types of APS applications: * ''APS site application'' is installed for each customer who needs the application services. In this case, each customer may have own ''application instance''. APS package carries the ''site application'' inside. * ''APS external application'' implies sharing a single cloud application for many customers who can get access to the application services as application tenants. APS package contains the integration components of the application, but not the application itself. APS 2 added flexibility to integrate applications not only with hosting platforms but also with each other. APS 2 makes it possible to create custom

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

in hosting platforms for managing the integrated applications.

Implementations

The following web hosting platforms allow installations of APS packages: *

Plesk Plesk is a commercial web hosting and server data center automation software developed for Linux and Windows-based retail hosting service providers. It was developed by Plesk International GmbH, with headquarters in Toronto, Canada and Scha ...

* Odin Service Automation *

1&1 Internet Ionos (formerly 1&1 IONOS and 1&1 Internet) is a web hosting company. It was founded in Germany in 1988 and is currently owned by United Internet. In addition to web hosting, it also provides domain registration, SSL certificates, email service ...

MyWebsite *ISPsystem ISPmanager *APSpanel *ISPConfig

Application catalog

APS packages are available for download a
application catalog
ISVs can make their applications publicly available by uploading them to this catalog.

References

External links