A New Open Source Enterprise Cloud Manager Is Available

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The OpenNebula Project is best known for its open source enterprise ready platform for cloud data centers and the fourth generation is available according to The Wall Street Journal article, “OpenNebula 4.0 Released-The Finest Open Source Enterprise Cloud Manager!”  The OpenNebula Project released its newest version to power research for many industry fields.

OpenNebula has many advantages:

OpenNebula is used by many enterprises as an open, flexible alternative to vCloud on their VMware-based data center. OpenNebula is a drop-in replacement to the VMware’s cloud stack that additionally brings support for multiple hypervisors and broad integration capabilities to leverage existing IT investments and keep existing operational processes. As an enterprise-class product, OpenNebula offers an upgrade path so all existing users can easily migrate their production and experimental environments to the new version.

There are many new features in the upgrade, including a redesign of Sunstone, new set operations for virtual machines, programmable VM actions, support for new DataStores, and compliance with Amazon and other open Cloud Computing APIs.  OpenNebula offers users enterprise grade software with open source options.  LucidWorks offers the same capabilities with its search applications for enterprise, Cloud, and Big Data.

Whitney Grace, June 20, 2013
Follow more happenings at OpenSourceSearch and LucidWorks.

A Big Data Search Similar To Google

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Google has become synonymous with search, even transforming into a verb in most languages.  Google, while it does support open source, keeps its search technology a secret.  It does, however, share information about how it is so successful with search and from that shared information Google clones have popped into existence.  One of them is Hadoop, but it is not as easy to use as Google.

Cloudera has gained notice lately, according to Wired in the article: “Open Source Build ‘Google Search For Big Data,’”  Cloudera designed a Google-style search application for Hadoop called Cloudera Search.  It works by:

Cloudera Search can integrate with the Hadoop Distributed File System or with Hbase — a NoSQL database also based on a Google white paper. Users can type what they’re looking for and get a list of results — just as they would with a Google search. The tool is based on Apache Solr, an open source search engine. Solr has been around since 2004, but underwent a major update last year that added features for using the tool across large computer clusters. Solr is based on Lucene, an open source library created by Doug Cutting, who also created Hadoop.

It increases Hadoop’s usability and helps organizations harness the power of their data.  Hadoop, though, is a rather young open source company using Apache Solr.  LucidWorks is the business end of Solr and have more experience with the technology.  LucidWorks knows the way to search and analyze Big Data and created a search application especially for it.

Whitney Grace, June 19, 2013

Follow more happenings at OpenSourceSearch and LucidWorks.

New Search Player For Hadoop

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Open source sees the rise of many vendors that build applications on the same platforms.  Marketwire gives the details about “Cloudera Democratizes Apache Hadoop For Enterprise End Users With Open Source, Interactive Search.”  Cloudera is built on the famous Apache Solr and the company created the first integrated search engine for interactive exploration of data in Hadoop’s Distributed File System and Apache HBase.  Cloudera has plans to increase Hadoop’s usability:

Cloudera Search was developed to address a rapidly emerging need, as enterprises’ Hadoop deployments mature and advance to become the primary repositories for more and more kinds of data: how to better and more quickly combine and refine data into a single, integrated platform. At its core, Cloudera Search incorporates Apache Solr and other search-related open source projects to support a comprehensive big data infrastructure, and to alleviate the significant costs of maintaining the disparate systems that many enterprises currently depend on to execute search queries.

Cloudera is doing a lot of firsts in the industry, but is not the commercial end of Apache Solr/Lucene.  LucidWorks is the business part of Apache for its search components, allowing the company to know all  the ins and outs of the software.  LucidWorks created search applications for Big Data, Cloud, and enterprise.

Whitney Grace, June 18, 2013

Follow more happenings at OpenSourceSearch and LucidWorks.

LucidWorks Teaches How To Leverage Solr 4

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In the open source community, if anyone wants to use the Apache Foundation’s search platform Lucene/Solr they are usually referred to LucidWorks.  LucidWorks is the commercial end of Lucene/Solr and while they do supply buyable search applications, they still greatly contribute to the open source community.  How?  According to Search Hub, LucidWorks holds trainings such as this webinar about the latest Solr release: “Webinar: Solr 4, The NoSQL Search Server.”

The much-anticipated Solr 4 unleashed a new slew of features advertised as erasing the boundaries between NoSQL databases and search engines.  Included among the features are: better versioning, real-time get, stronger durability, atomic updates, and optimistic concurrency.

Yonik Seeley will be presenting the webinar.  Here is a brief summary about his credentials:

Creator of Apache Solr and the Chief Open Source Architect and Co-Founder at LucidWorks. Mr. Seeley is an Apache Lucene/Solr PMC member and committer and an expert in distributed search systems architecture and performance. His work experience includes CNET Networks, BEA and Telcordia. He earned his M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University.

The entire webinar is available online as well as the presentation slides.  This information cokes straight from the horses’ mouth and will benefit anyone interested in learning about Lucene/Solr 4.

Whitney Grace, June 17, 2013

Follow more happenings at OpenSourceSearch and LucidWorks.

A Positive Outlook on Open Source

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If you browse over to Midsize Insider and read the article “Future Of Open Source Survey Suggests Disruptive Trend” you will get a discussion the recent Future of Open Source Survey from Black Duck Software.  The survey yields much of what we already know:  IT professionals are deploying open source to avoid costly proprietary software licensing fees, a better quality end product, and the freedom to tweak and develop as they please.  Eight hundred enterprise IT professionals responded to the survey and it yielded the following results: 61% believe open source spurs innovation and 57% believe the open source community will cross industries and make competitors work together.  Also companies want to deploy open source for the Big Data craze, analytics, and system integration.

Despite all of open source’s benefits, the main problem is the lack of traditional support companies receive from commercial software.

Although closed-source providers offer business-ready products, open-source technologies often need support and customization to work as per specific business requirements before being deployed to existing IT infrastructure. Some third-party vendors offer a variety of products and service tiers for the same purpose, but in the complex world of enterprise IT, one size doesn’t necessarily fit all. Midsize IT professionals inevitably end up having to tweak the open-source platforms beyond vendor specifications to improve integration with in-house systems.

Open source vendors enter the picture by offering their services to tweak open source software and provide support for the products they create.   Open source offers a flexibility never before seen in the IT world and end users are loving it.  LucidWorks augmented the Apache Lucene/Solr search platform to create individual search applications for enterprise, Cloud, and Big Data.  Each application can be tailored to an organization’s special needs.

Whitney Grace, June 14, 2013
Follow more happening at OpenSourceSearch and LucidWorks.

Yet Another Open Source Company Opens Its Doors

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Crafter is part of the Rivet Logic, a consulting and systems integration specialist, and Alfresco Web content management system family.  It first was an extension of the open source Alfresco, but over a five-year period it became a stand-alone application and Rivet Logic has decided to treat Crafter as a software product and provide commercial support for it.  Enterprise Apps Today details more of the story in, “Crafter Open Source CMS Goes Solo.”

Crafter is built on the Apache Solr platform with VMware Spring Framework and the Twitter Bootstrap as well.  It uses Java-based as the content repository, which makes it different from other content management systems that rely on PHP.  This sets Crafter apart from the rest of the competition, because it separates the content from the Web site application.

Crafter is already on its 2.2 version and 3.0 is on its way.  The plan is for Crafter 3 to be more user-friendly and better integration for backend systems for CRM and e-commerce. Plus something else:

‘We’re also introducing some social components, including Crafter social, which will support social content on the delivery of websites, for user-generated comments and ratings,’ [7. Mike Vertal, CEO of Crafter Software and Rivet Logic] said.

Social features.  Wow!  Include the kitchen sink as well and Crafter will be able to do everything.  Alfresco made a decisive business move in making Crafter its own entity and another smart move is deploying LucidWorks’ search applications for enterprise and Big Data projects.

Whitney Grace, June 13, 2013
Follow more happening at OpenSourceSearch and LucidWorks.

Straight From The Top Of LucidWorks

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What goes on in the mind of an open source vendor co-founder?  The best way to figure that out is to check out his blog.  Grant Ingersoll is the co-founder and chief scientist at LucidWorks, a search application company based on the Apache Lucene/Solr platform.  LucidWorks specializes in tweaking Apache’s open source search software to fit the individual needs of clients with a concentration on Big Data, enterprise, and the Cloud.

Ingersoll’s blog, Grant’s Grunt, focuses on Lucene, Solr, search, engineering, leadership, money, and life or that is what his tag line says.  Lately Ingersoll has been writing about ways to either work or meet up with the LucidWorks team, but some of his earlier posts express open source’s power and its widespread adoption throughout the IT industry.  He also offers some advice for software engineers:

In looking back on my career (no, I’m not that old, but I have been around long enough), there have been a few inflection points that have really helped me career-wise and they strike me as being generally applicable to software engineers/programmers who are interested in either getting better at their craft or in moving up to management or simply improve their breadth of knowledge.

The blog is a little sparse at the moment, because it went down last year and Ingersoll has kept it at bare bones.  Probably because has been working on LucidWorks projects, including a partnership with MapR and major fundraising.

Whitney Grace, June 12, 2013
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Bitter About Losing Money To Open Source

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Why did this not make headlines sooner?  From Readwrite.com, we just learned that “MySQL Co-Founder Wants You To Pay Up For Open Source” and that is probably not going to happen soon.  When Monty Widenius released MySQL to the public he saw his company’s revenue drop by 80%.  He failed to understand the ways to monetize open source, understandable because it was in its infancy at that time.  Take note that Widenius was more concerned with MySQL’s development than money—a mentality that keeps the community running.  Widenius argues that companies are using open source, but are not giving back what they take.  Open source is still doing well, however:

Widenius wants a business plan that would “keep” open source, but would users pay for software for a period of time before it is freely available.  It is not about the license, though, it is about if the project is wrong and what users should really be paying for.

If open source were really that bad, then no one would be turning a buck:

To wit, Facebook, Google, Amazon and others make billions of dollars selling services around open-source infrastructure, while Red Hat mints over a billion dollars annually selling a certified, binary distribution of community-developed Linux. There is plenty of money in and around open-source software. The open-source license doesn’t prevent this. It enables this.

Widenius is stuck in an old frame of mind; probably back with rotary phones and paper filing cabinets.   If open source did change, then a company like LucidWorks would not be able to exist or provide its clients with robust search applications.

Whitney Grace, June 11, 2013
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Do Not Pay When You Can Download For Free

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Do not let the title of this write-up make you think we are promoting piracy, when it is quite the contrary.  Github, the hub for all open source code and community, does not want users to pay for software or services when it is available for free via open source.  It compiled the “Open Source Alternatives To Proprietary Enterprise Software” list to help users find solutions to their software needs:

[It] is a collaborative list of open-source alternatives to many popular enterprise and government software needs. The list was originally adapted from the Open Source Procurement Toolkit, and has been converted from PDF to HTML (Bootstrap) and templated in Jekyll.

The popular resources are up there: Open Office, WordPress, Firefox, and GIMP.  There are also alternative solutions for the business world that handle everything from project management to business intelligence, but when it comes to search engines and they only suggest Xapian and Lucene/Solr.  They forgot to list LucidWorks search applications built on Lucene/Solr for enterprise and Big Data projects.  We have never seen a list like this before and actually maintained with current information.  Take advantage of this gathered knowledge and make open source start working for you.

Whitney Grace, June 10, 2013
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Pirated Software Harms Economy and Open Source Saves It

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Pirated software is reported to have a negative impact on the economy and it steals from more than just the company who made it, everyone suffers, and invokes a circle of life metaphor.  Glyn Moody at the Open Enterprise blog at Computer World UK takes this approach in his post, “BSA Study Demonstrates Open Source’s Economic Advantage.”  Scrolling through his diatribe about how the recent BSA’s report on piracy is full of hogwash, Moody breaks into how open source is an economic boon.

This year’s BSA report is different from its predecessors in that instead of claiming that pirated software harms the economy because of money not spent, it claims that licensed software is a better investment because unlicensed software has hidden costs.  The knowledgeable know that if open source has hidden costs they are minimal, plus they have the benefit of being virus free and upgrades are easy to obtain.  The BSA report also is trying to tout Microsoft as the end all solution for all software needs, which again is another false claim.  Open source is the BSA’s new target, but they the report does more to support it than deter downloads:

So what this all boils down to is that the fundamental premise of the latest BSA study – that licensed proprietary software is better in many ways than pirated copies – actually applies to open source software even more strongly, with the added virtues that the software is free to try, to use and to modify. That means the potential economic impact of free software is also even greater than that offered by both licensed and unlicensed proprietary software. It is yet another reason for governments around the world to promote the use of open source in their countries by everyone at every level.

Strike another notch in open source’s favor.  Open source has much to offer users, one included benefit is less technology headaches.  Fix your search headaches with LucidWorks’ search applications for Big Data, enterprise, and the Cloud built on the open source Lucene/Solr platform.

Whitney Grace, June 7, 2013
Follow more happening at OpenSourceSearch and LucidWorks.