It’s real, Google App Engine has been released. I’ve downloaded the SDK and worked my way though the Getting Started guide, and I’m excited. Very excited. GAE isn’t just a virtual server to deploy your application on, it’s an entire platform. GAE includes a DataStore API that makes SimpleDB look like a hobby project, Users API (Google’s answer to OpenID) and more.

GAE comes complete with auto-app-versioning, your choice of runtime environment (Python only for now, but they say there’s more coming) and automatic scaling. In fact, GAE lets us forget all about scaling and reliability: it just works. And that’s the future: complete platforms, not ad-hoc components. Google has definitely hit the nail on the head with GAE and I can’t wait until it’s out of beta. Stay tuned for more on GAE soon.