WebProNews

At Campfire One, an event where developers are invited to "talk shop" at the Google campus, Google announced a new set of features for App Engine that helps it interface more easily with existing technologies.

Google lists the following new features in a post on the Official Google Blog:

- App Engine's early look at Java™ language support includes a Java runtime, integration with the new Google Web Toolkit 1.6, and a Google Plugin for Eclipse

- The Google Secure Data Connector enables centrally-managed access to on-premise data from Google Apps

- The database import tool makes it easier to move gigabytes of data into App Engine (and export functionality is coming within the month)

- Cron support can execute scheduled tasks like report generation and DB clean-up at regular intervals

App engine is a year old, and Google has realized that it is too hard to build applications and wanted to make it easier.

"You spend more time being a Sysadmin than actually building your next great web app," Google says. The new features should make it easier.