Cloud Platform applications run on a Drupal-optimized platform. The core of the platform is an open-source LAMP infrastructure stack, combining the Linux (Ubuntu) operating system, Apache infrastructure, MySQL (Percona) database, and PHP programming language with Drupal. The default Cloud Platform configuration works as-is for most web experiences and other applications. Cloud Platform provides you with a suite of tools you can use to manage your applications and the domains and environments they run on.

What’s an application?

In Cloud Platform, an application is a software product that implements a web service, such as a Drupal-based website or a web-accessible API. Application specifically refers to the software product as an entity in itself, separate from the potentially many installations of the application in different environments (like Production or Dev) that may use specific domain names, with specific content. Applications have a lifecycle and typically have multiple versions. An application consists of its program code, such as Drupal core plus contributed and custom modules, along with static assets such as images and stylesheets for its visual theme.

Here are some of the tasks you can perform using the Cloud Platform interface and other tools:

• Configuring your environments

• Managing Cloud Platform infrastructure

• Managing applications using the command line

• Managing backups

• Managing domains

• Managing files

In addition, you can leverage the Using Cloud Actions feature in environments running on Cloud Next.

Acquia also offers a REST API to extend, enhance, and customize Cloud Platform. For more information, see Developing with the Cloud Platform API or the Cloud API v2 reference.

Managing applications with Cloud Platform