Last week Appcara unveiled a new solution for managing hybrid cloud environments, Telerik launched a cross-platform development suite for mobile app makers, and Amazon got a green light from the government. Nutanix also got a spot in the limelight after it released a reference architecture for Citrix XenDesktop.

Appcara’s new AppStack Express Appliance is a 3U box that keeps track of apps across the private and public cloud using a configuration repository that stores settings and other systems data. It also features a simplified point-and-click interface, an app marketplace and “total” portability between AWS and users’ on-premise deployments.

Appcara unveiled AppStack on the same day Telerik announced Icenium, a unified framework that offers a simpler alternative to platform- and device-specific SDKs. The cloud-based toolkit includes templates that automate back-end processors, a data navigator, and a set of prepackaged cloud services for easy validation and social integration.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) didn’t roll out any new features this week, but it did receive a three-year FedRAMP certification. FedRAMP is short for the Federal Risk Authorization Management Program, a government framework that regulates cloud service providers with a presence in the public sector. The authorization will save the company the trouble of undergoing multiple security and compliance tests before signing deals with government agencies. Amazon’s newly obtained FedRAMP permit is noteworthy because it gives the public sector yet another reason to adopt the public cloud for unclassified workloads.

Hyperscale solutions provider Nutanix earned a certification of its own a few days ago: the company achieved CitrixReady Status after successfully completing the virtualization vendor’s “rigorous” partner program. It marked the occasion by releasing a reference architecture for several XenDesktop configurations, including those that that leverage MSC and PVS.