JBoss middleware users tout benefits of enterprise open source
306372
Simplifying operations and saving money were the two themes heard often among IT managers  who talked about adopting JBoss middleware applications within their businesses at the JBoss World show in Orlando.
378477
Blog: Open source applications will drive a hefty load of infrastructure purchases in the future.  Proprietary vendors who hide their heads in the sand and try to avoid this trend or make it difficult for would-be open source partners to work with them will fin
368060
The Story: What?s in a name? Back in the days of the Gingrich revolution, the nastiest label you could pin on a politician was ?liberal.? And now that open source has become an essential technology, the quickest way to get a rise out of an open source executive (and to get flamed on dozens of blogs) is to say his or her company is ?commercial.?[ Slideshow: 2007's top underreported tech stories ]                                                    No matter what you call them, open source companies have been steadily integrating parts of the hated commercial software subscription model into their business. First it was support, and now it is software access. Say it ain?t so, Linus.MySQL, for example, will charge users of its enterprise edition to use the code, not just for support as has been the traditional open source business model. ?We are looking for ways to extend our offerings in a way that can be monetized,? bluntly says Kaj Arno, the company?s VP for community.Chander Kant, founder of the open source storage software company Zmanda, is likewise frank about the need to drive revenue. Speaking of the open source community as a whole, he says, ?We are not a charity. We need to monetize.?Recognizing that charging to use open source software flies in the face of the original open source premise of freely sharable code open to everyone, Arno is quick to note that the paid version of Workbench has code and features not found in the free version ? and that the free version ?is not crippled.? Arno calls the move an experiment, and acknowledges that MySQL needs to move carefully to avoid upsetting the often quick-tempered open source community.Is this a trend? Red Monk analyst Stephen O?Grady says it is: ?Ultimately when you look at a high-profile firm like MySQL embracing it, it?s difficult to conclude anything else.?InfoWorld blogger (and IBM employee) Savio Rodrigues notes another example. In a recent blog post, he looked at changes to JBoss since it was purchased by Red Hat Software and concluded: ?The Fedora/JBoss subscription is just like the software subscription business model that commercial software vendors have been using for decades.?Does that mean a company that adopts the usage-based pricing model isn?t really open-source? That?s an interesting point, since as Zmanda?s Kant acknowledges, ?the litmus test of open source is control of the code.? Open source software delivered through appliances keeps the access ? and thus control ? away from users, he notes. But code binaries distributed as software remain open to their users ? for now, at least.The Bottom Line: Have MySQL and Red Hat run away from the principles of open source? Who cares. The real point is that the open source business model is evolving away from the ?free? model and toward an alternative development approach for commercial software. If you adopted open source due to its cost, you may not save as much as you thought. If you adopted open source for the access to source code or the community-supported development approach that is supposed to result in better software, it?s not yet clear if the greater commercialization will enhance those aspects or drive away the true believers and make open source no different than the old-fashioned commercial offerings.Complete list of 2007 underreported stories: 1.? Java is becoming the new Cobol 2.? Sun Microsystems is back in the game 3.? Hackers take aim at Mac OS X 4.? There are some threats you can worry less about 5.? Companies may have found a way around H-1B visa limits 6.? Open source?s new commercial strategy 7.? End-to-end Ethernet finally arrives 8.? Blade servers arrive for the masses 9.? BI is dead; long live BI 10. Balance of power shifts to software buyers
194864
(InfoWorld) - Red Hat said this week it had spruced up its Red Hat Command Center server- and application-monitoring service, eliminating the need for users to maintain a Red Hat-prescribed hardware appliance to collect monitoring data. The "scout" appliance has been replaced by software in the SaaS platform, which customers can now run on their own systems. "The customer now picks their own hardware and the software is now provided for free," said Andy Karandikar, Red Hat product manager for Command Center. Previously, users had to purchase a $900 x86-based white box for monitoring. Command Center is positioned for managed service providers, who resell it to their customers, and for small- and medium-sized businesses. Red Hat also addedÂ  the ability to export monitoring data in XML. This data is available for download, and offline archival and analysis. Prior to adding the XML capability, this type of offline archival could only be done in bits and pieces and in text form. "[Now] you can do it in XML, which is a more structured way that you can slice and dice the data," Karandikar said. Red Hat also improved the interface of Command Center so that it is more consistent with other Red Hat services and products. Red Hat Command Center monitors server components ranging from the operating system to applications. Red Enterprise Linux, JBoss software and a wide range of other IT infrastructure can be monitored including Windows. The Command Center service costs $192 per monitored server per year. Red Hat announced its "North American Value2" seminar tour, which features half-day seminars on transforming an enterprise with an open source-based approach to virtualization and SOA. The tour kicks off on September 11 in Minneapolis. "The Value2 tour is really a concerted push for Red Hat to get on the road and communicate our broader strategy as it relates to our open source architecture, how our solutions are being used in customer sites and the really get the message out there as to the value of the open source approach," said Shaun Connolly, vice president of product management and Red Hat. Technologies such as JBoss middleware are featured, as is the MetaMatrix data federation technology acquired by Red Hat.
492713
What happens to open source in a cloud-based computing world?  Or when the enterprise runs dry?
567385
Through its JBoss division, Red Hat looks to woo developers and gain revenue from distributing open-source tools.
97573
Could become corporate developers' best friend Red Hat has announced the beta release of Red Hat Developer Studio, the new Eclipse-based IDE for the Red Hat family of solutions, including JBoss Enterprise Middleware and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.â¦
612512
JBoss Inc. has added business process management (BPM) to its growing roster of open source software.
411555
Open-source software maker releases big update to Java-based application server program.
255902
Now for some real Apache code Column As I write this, I'm on the Eurostar train, just returning from O'Reilly's OSCon (Open Source Conference) in Brussels. Some fascinating insights there; and even my own talk generated some interesting discussion. Some of the delegates, including O'Reilly himself, are promoting opensource ideas going beyond software and into society more generally. I've touched on that in this very column before now, but a related argument that's new to me is that the open/closed debate in software could become largely sidelined, as the industry focuses on software as a service (such as Google's offerings) more than as a product.â¦
354087
Without question, open source is one of the most important forces in enterprise IT. Apache is still the reigning champion of Web server software.
419307
Red Hat and Exadel today unveiled a partnership aimed at bringing Eclipse-based developer tools to Red Hat's JBoss middleware.
64074
TechWeb - The software is designed to automate security, messaging communications and deployment configurations for middleware, freeing developers to devote more time to business logic.
281766
(InfoWorld) - JBoss is announcing Monday a faster version of JBoss Rules, the company's open source business rules engine. Gains in speed in version 4.0 have resulted in rules processing in seconds as opposed to minutes, said Burr Sutter, technical product manager for JBoss. Speed has been increased by new "sequentiality" methods, which do not assume the rules change all the time. The product is 40 percent faster than before. Based on the JBoss Drools Project, JBoss Rules is used to set rules within a business process. It can be deployed for functions such as establishing computational business logic associated with an application. Examples would be a pricing engine or a routing node. An AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)-enabled Web console in version 4.0 extends Rules to nonprogrammers. "It allows nonprogramming staffers to actually interact with [JBoss] Rules and develop rules, and it gives the administrators the opportunity to have lifecycle control over those rules," Sutter said. The ability to express rules has been enhanced in version 4.0 through the addition of support for MVEL (MVFlex Expression Language). Support also continues for Java rules. "We have a much more powerful language environment now," Sutter said. JBoss Rules is being integrated with the JBoss ESB (enterprise service bus), in which the rules engine can examine the content of a message, such as an invoice, and make decisions on where to send the message. The ESB handles message flow while Rules serves as a "traffic cop" working in conjunction with the ESB, said Sutter. JBoss provides a "rules service" for the ESB. A guided rules editor has been added, allowing users to point and click to declare a business rule using list boxes. JBoss Rules 4.0 is also described as being Hibernate-ready; that is, it can function with JBoss' Hibernate object-relational mapping software, which converts relational database rows into Java objects. A business rule could be built that, for example, pulls customer names directly from the database.
398755
Mainframe systems are playing a key role in many SOA (service-oriented architecture) projects, according to a study released this week by IBM user group SHARE.
653200
An investor's guide to service-oriented architecture
607394
Linux advocates have long insisted that open-source development results in better and more secure software. Now they have statistics to back up their claims.