DigitalOcean Inc., which operates a “developer cloud” that makes it easier for developers to build modern applications, said today it’s launching a new cloud-based platform that automates infrastructure management.

The DigitalOcean App Platform enables developers to deploy their application code in production with just a few clicks, and advances the company’s overall mission of simplifying cloud computing. It wants to make it so that developers can spend more of their time on doing what they do best, writing code.

DigitalOcean, which raised $50 million in a Series C round of funding in May, says it’s important to eliminate the infrastructure management burden, since a recent study it commissioned found that 65% of startup founders cite technical know-how as the main barrier of entry for new businesses.

The idea here is to make DigitalOcean’s developer cloud accessible to startups and small businesses that don’t have the expertise or time to deal with infrastructure. It does this by handling common tasks such as provisioning and managing servers, databases, operating systems, application runtimes and the like.

International Data Corp. Research Director Larry Carvalho said developers are increasingly turning to modern application platforms built on open standards, such as DigitalOcean’s cloud, to fast-track application development.

“Cloud native technologies powered by open-source Kubernetes are now the first choice for developers at companies of all sizes,” Carvalho said. “For startups and small to medium-sized businesses with skills shortage, price, simplicity of experience and reliability are all key considerations, especially for those organizations that prefer a completely abstracted and automated infrastructure environment.”

The DigitalOcean App Platform helps developers by making it possible for them to deploy their code direct from the GitHub repository it’s hosted on. It also enables automatic redeployment when they update their apps via the source repository.

DigitalOcean Vice President of Product Apurva Joshi said that millions of new businesses run their infrastructure entirely in the cloud, and so they need an easy way to launch the applications that power their ideas.

“With App Platform, we built upon DigitalOcean’s proven technology and signature simplicity to provide a fully managed experience that allows developers to stop worrying about infrastructure and get their apps to market faster,” he said.

The DigitalOcean App Platform also provides greater visibility into the underlying infrastructure, giving customers more options when it comes to scaling their apps. They can either take advantage of the platform’s fully managed, built-in scaling tools, or manage this by themselves.

DigitalOcean said the App Platform supports programming languages and frameworks such as Python Node.js, Go, PHP, Ruby and Hugo, and is available now with a free tier for static sites and additional paid tiers.

Photo: DigitalOcean/Facebook