Category Archives: Content Management

New Open Source Database Company

Posted on by
Reply

Open source companies realize the power they possess as well as their weaknesses.  When there is a weakness, usually they develop a solution or team up with another company, like “SkySQL Merges With MariaDB Developers To Create ‘Next Generation Open Source’ Database Company,” according to MarketWire. SkySQL signed an agreement with Monty Program Ab for a chance to work with its MariaDB and develop it into an interoperable new SQL open source database.

MariaDB has a whole slew of new options that SkySQL finds exciting:

MariaDB is truly open source and is compatible with the MySQL database while providing new extensions and features. Customers and users move to MariaDB for its performance. It is uniquely capable of interfacing with NoSQL database systems like Cassandra and LevelDB as well as to access data in other formats thanks to pluggable storage engines. This allows customers to leverage the capabilities of the latest database technologies as well as access data in legacy systems without expensive and risky database migrations. This merger brings cloud and big data capabilities together, which will enable the new company to become an interface for fellow open source technology providers.

Both companies are looking forward to a profitable and successful relationship that will benefit not only them, but also the open source community and its clients.  What any open source database could benefit from is a powerful and robust search engine, such as those developed by LucidWorks.

Whitney Grace, May 6, 2013

Follow more happening at OpenSourceSearch and LucidWorks.

DataStax Expands into London Office

Posted on by
Reply

DataStax is known for its NoSQL data management based on open source Apache Cassandra.  Just like many companies that cater to the enterprise with open source value-added solutions, DataStax is doing well and making headlines.  The latest is covered in the press release, “DataStax Addresses Unprecedented Demand in the High-Growth EMEA Market by Opening London Office.”

The release begins:

DataStax, the company that powers the big data apps that transform business, today announced that it has opened a London office to address the large and growing big data market in the EMEA region. Officially incorporated on March 5, 2013, DataStax EMEA provides sales, marketing and support services for DataStax’s commercial product, DataStax Enterprise (DSE) 3.0. The Apache Cassandra-based NoSQL big data platform delivers continuous availability support and performance, as well as elastic scaling across multiple data centers and the cloud.

DataStax powers many leading companies including 20 of the Fortune 100.  More and more companies are turning to open source solutions to meet their enterprise content management and search needs.  The LucidWorks product suite is another that is getting a lot of attention.  They stand alone in the industry in terms of solid customer support and training.  In addition, they have a name that goes back several years, preceding many of the trendy solutions of today.

Emily Rae Aldridge, April 11, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

Do Not Be Reluctant About Open Source

Posted on by
Reply

We have always documented articled that express enthusiasm for open source, but we have never covered IT professionals reluctant to trust open source.  Enterprise Storage Forum wrote, “Two Viable Open Source NAS Solutions” about how open source provides manageable and trustworthy network-attached solutions for files.  The article focuses on two open source solutions, FreeNAS and OpenFlier, for their active development and popularity:

The two options under consideration in this article are FreeNAS and OpenFiler. Both have been around for a while and have many of the features you would expect in a business-class storage system. While FreeNAS is completely open source, OpenFiler has taken the approach of offering a base system for free but charging a fee for some additional features. You can still put together a usable system with the free version, but you might want to consider some of the paid options for the improvements they offer.

Run through the walk throughs to get a feel for how open source may be the tool you need.  Starting with simple file management will get you over the hump and into the wonderful and welcoming open source community.  NAS solutions are only the start.  Once you do have your NAS setup, a powerful search application like LucidWorks will help track down the data.

Whitney Grace, April 9, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

Amazon Falls Short To Riak CS

Posted on by
Reply

According to Wired.com in the article, “Amazon Cloud Storage Clone Goes Open Source,” Amazon Cloud Services are a great way to have instant access to stored data and run applications.  The downside, however, is that Amazon does not let you set up your own personal cloud service.  To counter Amazon (though not as a dig), Basho has made its Riak CS part of the open source community.  Riak CS is designed to be compatible with Amazon’s service and it allows users to create private Amazon storage systems or to power your own web applications.

Along with going open source, Basho as added new features to Riak CS.  One question still must be asked:

But why go open source now, almost a year after the product was first released? ‘It’s easier to go in one direction, and not the other, we wanted to make sure we did it right,’ says Justin Sheehy, the CTO of Basho, the company that develops Riak. ‘It was a brand new product for us.’

Another reason is that more developers are turning to open source software instead of commercial licenses, so when the developers do need to purchase technical support or other software they will already have Basho’s software in place for easy integration.  Basho made a good strategic move, what will they do next?  Even with a well-organized and structured Cloud storage system, users still need to be able to search with a reliable and Cloud-geared search application like LucidWorks.

Whitney Grace, April 8, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

Alfresco Warms Up Open Source Commodities

Posted on by
Reply

Alfresco CEO John Powell recently decided to change the company’s business direction by becoming an IPO in the US and increasing its global presence.  In order to do that, CMSWire explains that “Alfresco Snaps-Up Open Source WeWebU For Hybrid Cloud Content And Mobile Management.”  WeWebU and Alfresco have worked together for some time and WeWebU became an Alfresco Gold Partner in 2012.  Both companies are open source vendors for enterprise CMS space, so the acquisition does not come as a surprise.  WeWebU will enhance Alfresco’s enterprise portfolio by adding content management capabilities.

Most of the capabilities will be for enterprise-ready mobile content enterprise solutions:

According to Alfresco, the deal will enable it, using WeWebU, to offer customers the ability to streamline content-centric business processes, like contract, deal and e-File management, as well as managing all the different kind of files and documents relating to the enterprise business.  Using dynamic, role-based views and virtual folders with Alfresco’s ECM, it will also be easier to customize Alfresco business processes with configuration instead of coding.

Alfresco is simply one of many open source companies wanting to expand into mobile content management, and the WeWebU is the leg-up they need.  There has not been any other word about acquiring other companies, but it could be a start. Content management is only one tool that enterprise users need to worry about, the other is a powerful and reliable search to find the content.  LucidWorks is the best open source search application.

Whitney Grace, February 18, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

Facebook Adds a New Search Feature

Posted on by
Reply

Facebook finally got around to developing a search feature and the social networking giant named it Graph Search.  The new application was launched recently and the technology media has been buzzing about it ever since.  TechCrunch adds its own two cents in, “Iterations: Graph Search, In Theory And In Practice.”  Some news sources have said Facebook has finally unleashed a search product capable of rivaling Google.  While Graph Search does tread in Web areas unavailable to Google, it probably will not topple the Big G.
Here is what TechCrunch weighed in:

I haven’t paid as close attention to Facebook as others, but my initial reaction to the unveiling of Graph Search was that it was less about what individual consumers could do (though that’s cool), and more about how companies, brands, and other institutions could further segment the Facebook audience in order to hyper-target their messages, advertisements, and attention. This is where Open Graph, in theory, could continue to funnel data into Facebook’s data centers and, over time, build all sorts of audiences with a few keyword search terms.

The article makes an astute assumption that people have not been conditioned to search on Facebook and that users are growing more and more hesitant in putting information on the social network.  The reason?  Facebook keeps changing its privacy settings.

Other Web sites like Pinterest and Quora are already leading users to new information sources without relying on a home-built search application.  Graph Search, though, will allow users to search their content along with friends’.  For the time being, Graph Search is in Beta mode and has a long, long way to go.  If you want to find your own new brand of search, LucidWorks is a place to start.

Whitney Grace, February 4, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

 

Cassandra Gets a Makeover

Posted on by
Reply

DataStax is the company people turn to when they need help with Apache Cassandra.  Market Watch has been working on an upgrade for the software, “DataStax Announces Community Edition 1.2-Latestest Version of Apache Cassandra(TM) Includes Free Version Of OpsCenter, The #1 Visual Management And Monitoring Solution for Cassandra.”  DataStax’s Community Edition 1.2 comes with a slew of useful upgrades, but the highlight is the DataStax OpsCenter- a visual management and monitoring solution for Cassandra.  Users can the OpsCenter to keep track of clusters from any location with any device.  There are also performance improvements for streaming, compaction, column indexes, memory usage, etc.

‘Cassandra 1.2 represents one of the most significant releases of the database yet,’ said Jonathan Ellis, chief technology officer, DataStax, and project chair of Apache Cassandra. ‘This new release makes it much easier for developers to insert and manipulate data, while CQL3 in 1.2 allows them to model data more naturally. We also worked to improve Cassandra deployments on denser hardware, with features like virtual nodes (vnodes), disk failure policies and compaction performance.’

DatsStax Community 2.1 will benefit any user and each will be impressed with the new ways to control data.  DataStax continues to improve their technology.  One can always count on them to improve user experience with databases.  The same can be said about LucidWorks and its search applications.

Whitney Grace, January 23, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.

SugarCRM Gains Most Successful Title

Posted on by
Reply

“Best in show,” “judges choice,” and “Miss Congeniality” are some awards people win in contests.  So without further ado from Fort Mill Times we can happily announce that “SugarCRM Named One Of The 10 Most Successful Open Source Projects Of 2012 By Network World Magazine.”  SugarCRM is a popular enterprise customer relationship manager company.  Network World Magazine compiled list naming the ten most successful open source projects of 2012 and SugarCRM made it.

‘Sugar has become an open source success story,’ said Alan Shimel, Network World. ’For a long time it was considered just an open source version of Salesforce.com, but has emerged from Salesforce’s shadow and become a CRM power in its own right. With lots of ways to consume Sugar, there is a model and price point for just about everyone. While continuing to innovate, Sugar has found its place.’

SugarCRM had dedicated itself to addressing its customer problems and finding resolutions.  The company continues to provide an enterprise-wide CRM solution with a focus on interaction fluidity between the customers and purveyors.  The year of 2012 was the year of open source, will 2013 win the community even more accolades?  If you need a fast-acting search solution just like SugarCRM provides a fast CRM solution, you may want to check out LucidWorks.

Whitney Grace, January 16, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

Schools Testing Open Source Waters

Posted on by
Reply

Research is a big part of academia and schools pay millions of dollars to access databases that have scholarly information.  Organizations like Google and OER Commons provide students and researchers with open source databases. Beaumont recently published, “Lawrence Schools To Test ‘Open-Source’ Materials.”  The article explains how Lawrence public schools in Kansas will pilot test that will get rid of hardcopy textbooks and replace them with open-source material.  The change will teach students how to access digital information and will save the school money.  If the test goes well and voters approve a tech upgrade for the schools, the district will deploy the new system.

With the massive volume of material now becoming available, Foster said, teachers may soon have the ability to select different material that is specifically tailored for different school settings, or different types of students. For example, teachers can pick material designed for an urban, low-income class, middle-class rural schools, and even for students whose native language is not English, or students with visual impairments.  ‘It’s much more of a teacher-led, student-driven kind of system, he said. ‘It’s much more directed to the needs of individual students.’

Another benefit is that material will be up-to-date and students will be able to research real world examples much easier.  Open source education tools are only beginning to be tested in public schools, but as costs increase and cheaper/academic quality information pops up they will be used more.  Open source software is another way to save on money.   If you have search problems, it may be best to seek out the open source company LucidWorks.

Whitney Grace, January 15, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

Crafter Profile Is the Latest Tool From Rivet Logic

Posted on by
Reply

New tools in the toolbox are always exciting, so be prepared to have excitement course through your body after you read the latest announcement from Rivet Logic via Virtual Strategy Magazine: “Rivet Logic Releases Crafter Profile at MongoSV 2012.”  Rivet Logic specializes in content management and its new tool is an addition to the Crafter Rivet Web experience management solution.  The Crafter Profile allows users to add a scalable user repository and user profile management to Java-based web applications.  The Crafter Profile is built on MongoDB and it fully leverages Rivet Logic’s NoSQL database for Web site applications.

Rivet Logic is especially proud of the new tool, because it gives MongoDB developers the chance to use an open source tool for Web sites relating to user management.  They are even prouder that it enhances one of the company’s top products:

Crafter Profile is part of an entire suite of Web CMS capabilities offered by the full Crafter Rivet solution, which provides enterprises with a powerful and user-friendly solution for building and managing Web content and the site visitor experience for all types of content-rich applications, including next-generation enterprise websites, mobile applications, intranets, social community platforms, and more. Crafter Rivet provides both an authoring and publishing application (Crafter Studio), and a high-performance content delivery system (Crafter Engine).

Commercial companies are thanking the open source community by giving them upgraded tools.  People have to respect the take a little, return a little mentality found in open source.  Another company that follows this development path is LucidWorks, a search application company built on Apache Lucene.

Whitney Grace, January 9, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext