DreamFactory and Verizon have partnered to launch a free enterprise application development portal for Verizon Cloud.

Built with DreamFactory’s open-source REST API MBaaS and hosted on Verizon’s cloud, the DreamFactory-Verizon Partner Solutions Portal gives developers a cloud-first development environment for desktop, mobile and IoT app creation. The portal provides enterprise developers with CloudSpace sandboxes to build application workloads, offering capabilities such as DreamFactory’s REST back ends, LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Python/Perl) stack, MongoDB integration, and external APIs and services offered by Verizon Cloud.

The portal is designed for DevOps and Dev/Test methodologies as well. Dev/Test capabilities have been built into DreamFactory sandboxes for Verizon Cloud with prepackaged REST APIs, along with Ops deployment in CloudSpace and reporting/tracking metrics.

(Related: DreamFactory wants to stop the madness of building your own APIs)

Bill Appleton, the CEO of DreamFactory, said a partnership with Verizon made sense in what he called a “Reese’s peanut butter moment,” combining DreamFactory’s REST middleware with Verizon’s public and private cloud deployments to create an end-to-end DevOps and IaaS platform for developers.

“Developers are increasingly in the driver’s seat when it comes to making choices on which clouds and platforms to use,” he said. “If you can win developers onto your platform, the easier it is to grow your business. Combining DreamFactory’s REST API back end with Verizon’s enterprise-grade cloud services in a free development portal enables both parties to attract more developers and work to grow them as customers.”

According to Appleton, DreamFactory will soon release a commercial enterprise offering to manage multi-tenant production instances, and the partnership with Verizon gives the REST API platform a foothold in the enterprise cloud market. The Verizon partnership and development portal will serve as DreamFactory’s gateway to what Appleton sees as a shift away from pure MBaaS and toward more flexible hybrid MBaaS/IaaS cloud-based mobile and IoT development.

“In the longer-term, we see this as the fastest, most effective way for enterprises to securely mobilize data for the new generation of mobile and cloud-based productivity applications for their employees, partners and customers,” said Appleton. “Securely mobilizing data has been a key challenge for companies looking to develop these new mobile applications. DreamFactory running on Verizon’s secure cloud platform provides a huge productivity boost for the development and operation of these applications, speeding time-to-market, and driving innovation.”