[axelfontaine]

For JVM apps Boxfuse (https://boxfuse.com) gives you dead-easy deployment to plain AWS by generating minimal VM images that run unchanged both locally on VirtualBox and in the cloud. It follows the principles of immutable infrastructure (machines are disposable and never modified) and all updates are performed as zero-downtime blue/green deployments.

[nickpsecurity]

Now that is a bit closer to what I'm talking about. I appreciate the tip about this service as I know some Java people that might like it. You might find it interesting that these Java VM services are actually similar to what safety-critical, embedded industry has been doing for a while:

http://www.aonix.com/pdf/PercDatasheet.pdf

They run POSIX and safety-critical apps side-by-side on a microkernel (eg QNX, INTEGRITY) w/ latter usually on a built-for-purpose runtime like PERC. They also would combine app, dependencies, and runtime into one image that could go into a ROM. Services like Boxfuse are doing it for cloud but the model goes back over a decade with proven benefit. Goes back further in security kernels (eg Aesec's GEMSOS or BAE's XTS-400) where they did same thing for preventing sensitive components from leaking to ported POSIX/Linux apps. So, it goes back almost three decades now. That's how long it takes industry to learn apparently. ;)

EDIT: Wait, you're the founder rather than just a user. You might have heard of some of this advanced, clever Java stuff already then. Haha.