In Digg Database Architecture the developers talk about how they manage their database clusters and various failure recovery mechanisms in place. An interesting read.
Friday, September 19, 2008
WSO2 @ ZendCon 2008
Shankar and Katie talk about trends they've observed at ZendCon. Check out WSO2's Web Services Framework for PHP where we try to anticipate and make PHP developers ready for some of these trends.
The Characteristics of Mature Open Source Software
I recently had a chance to use some of the early work I did for OpenBRR. This time though, I am on the other side of the fence. I now have to evaluate our own Open Source software. In preparation, I re-read the whitepaper to refresh my memory and found this gem in the Appendix.
The Characteristics of Mature Open Source Software
1. Separation of development and stable branch.
2. The software is backed by a foundation, a corporation, or a strong
community.
3. The community is organized into groups, each responsible for separate tasks
(the maintainer, the documentation group, the development group, the
evangelism group).
4. Project extensions are available.
5. The project has existed at least 1 year.
6. There is a well-defined process to enter the core development team.
7. The project’s license is acknowledged by the Open Source Initiative
(http://opensource.org).
8. Separation of documentations: User documentation, Installation
documentation, Admin documentation, and, crucially, development
documentation.
9. User documentation is extensive, available in many formats.
10. Separation of mailing lists: user mailing list, developer mailing list, security
mailing list, evangelism mailing list, etc.
11. Not very aggressive in doing minor or major releases. Quick point releases
are fine. (For Major.Minor.Point release numbering system.)
12. Books are readily available.
13. Large-scale adoption and usage of the software exists by organizations and/or
individuals.
14. The software component has reasonable native unit and functional tests and
the code coverage for these tests should be reasonable (30-80% range).
15. The component needs to be well integratable with other containing/contained
components.
16. The component’s bug database should indicate the revision numbers, unified
diffs to each bug that is fixed.
17. The software is easy to install. It has well-documented installation
instructions.
18. The software has a clean user interface. (GUI or command-line)
19. Performance metrics are available.
20. A deployment guide is available.
21. Well-known large-scale deployments (e.g. Wikipedia for mediawiki).
22. Intuitive to use and no convoluted designs (e.g., MoinMoin vs. Tikiwiki).
23. Ported across multiple platforms (Linux, Windows, Solaris, and Mac).
24. Non-intrusive, for example a small runtime footprint.
25. Separation of delivery of security patches, bug fixes, and new
features/enhancements.
In case you are still wondering, OpenBRR is an evaluation framework, which gives a business the ability to evaluate a Free and Open Source Software component and derive a Business Readiness Rating (BRR) ranging from 1 (un-acceptable) to 5 (ideal for adoption). The evaluation is done using the above list as a foundation on a spreadsheet (which is pretty much the framework)
The whitepaper and some community contributed sample evaluations can be downloaded from the OpenBRR site.
The Characteristics of Mature Open Source Software
1. Separation of development and stable branch.
2. The software is backed by a foundation, a corporation, or a strong
community.
3. The community is organized into groups, each responsible for separate tasks
(the maintainer, the documentation group, the development group, the
evangelism group).
4. Project extensions are available.
5. The project has existed at least 1 year.
6. There is a well-defined process to enter the core development team.
7. The project’s license is acknowledged by the Open Source Initiative
(http://opensource.org).
8. Separation of documentations: User documentation, Installation
documentation, Admin documentation, and, crucially, development
documentation.
9. User documentation is extensive, available in many formats.
10. Separation of mailing lists: user mailing list, developer mailing list, security
mailing list, evangelism mailing list, etc.
11. Not very aggressive in doing minor or major releases. Quick point releases
are fine. (For Major.Minor.Point release numbering system.)
12. Books are readily available.
13. Large-scale adoption and usage of the software exists by organizations and/or
individuals.
14. The software component has reasonable native unit and functional tests and
the code coverage for these tests should be reasonable (30-80% range).
15. The component needs to be well integratable with other containing/contained
components.
16. The component’s bug database should indicate the revision numbers, unified
diffs to each bug that is fixed.
17. The software is easy to install. It has well-documented installation
instructions.
18. The software has a clean user interface. (GUI or command-line)
19. Performance metrics are available.
20. A deployment guide is available.
21. Well-known large-scale deployments (e.g. Wikipedia for mediawiki).
22. Intuitive to use and no convoluted designs (e.g., MoinMoin vs. Tikiwiki).
23. Ported across multiple platforms (Linux, Windows, Solaris, and Mac).
24. Non-intrusive, for example a small runtime footprint.
25. Separation of delivery of security patches, bug fixes, and new
features/enhancements.
In case you are still wondering, OpenBRR is an evaluation framework, which gives a business the ability to evaluate a Free and Open Source Software component and derive a Business Readiness Rating (BRR) ranging from 1 (un-acceptable) to 5 (ideal for adoption). The evaluation is done using the above list as a foundation on a spreadsheet (which is pretty much the framework)
The whitepaper and some community contributed sample evaluations can be downloaded from the OpenBRR site.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Bring Legacy Data To Your Mashups With The WSO2 Mashup Server
Bring Legacy Data To Your Mashups With The WSO2 Mashup Server | WSO2 Oxygen Tank
My latest tutorial on one of the cool new features in the WSO2 Mashup Server's most recent release; Data Services. I had fun writing it and creating the the sample Mashup. Hope you guys have fun trying the tutorial out ....
Spreadsheets, CSV files and Databases are among the most basic forms of data representation and manipulation. They have been around for ages and probably will be for many years to come. The word 'legacy', meaning that which is handed down from a predecessor, is often used in the context of these technologies and data withinm. In a 'service oriented' world, challenges of integrating such legacies with the present generation of applications is addressed by products such as the WSO2 Data Services Solution. The WSO2 Mashup Server embeds the WSO2 Data Services solution from version 1.5, enhancing the agile service composition capabilities already present in the Mashup Server. In this tutorial, we will go through the steps involved in exposing a Microsoft Excel preadsheet as a service using the WSO2 Mashup Server Web Console.
My latest tutorial on one of the cool new features in the WSO2 Mashup Server's most recent release; Data Services. I had fun writing it and creating the the sample Mashup. Hope you guys have fun trying the tutorial out ....
Monday, September 15, 2008
Bye bye.. Merrill Lynch?
Bank of America to Buy Merrill Lynch for $50 Billion
Whenever someone mentions 'Wall Street' this image comes to my mind almost always. It's disturbing how even the mightiest can fall in the volatile world of business. I think ML is probably the latest to die from the now famous US subprime mortgage disease.
If you are not familiar with it, here's a nice dummy's guide. BBC did a good article last year, which is a serious take on matters. Buying of ML by Bank of America is ironic in this case, as it's the lending spree by banks that created this mess. Investment companies like ML, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and others got caught napping.
Interesting lessons learnt nevertheless ...
Bank of America said it agreed to buy Merrill Lynch in an all-stock deal worth $50 billion, snagging the world's largest retail brokerage after one of the worst-ever weekends on Wall Street.
Whenever someone mentions 'Wall Street' this image comes to my mind almost always. It's disturbing how even the mightiest can fall in the volatile world of business. I think ML is probably the latest to die from the now famous US subprime mortgage disease.
If you are not familiar with it, here's a nice dummy's guide. BBC did a good article last year, which is a serious take on matters. Buying of ML by Bank of America is ironic in this case, as it's the lending spree by banks that created this mess. Investment companies like ML, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and others got caught napping.
Interesting lessons learnt nevertheless ...
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Fred Wilson on the 'Now Web' and monetizing Twitter
In a recent interview, Fred Wilson talks about how he thinks Twitter and friends will make money for VCs. It seems to me like he really doesn't have much of a plan either, when he answers "How will companies make money from the Now Web?" by saying ..
Well, can it be that "people aren't currently executing a business model" because they don't have jack when it comes to it? I mean, it's one thing to show a business model on paper and colourful presentation slides; but history dictates that generating real money and becoming profitable quarter by quarter involves a tad bit more than story telling skills.
It's a bit like super cars. The specs for a Honda NSX looks great on paper. But when it really comes down to taking it for a spin, Ayrton Senna can make it look like a dream. Give it to a teenager and things will not go that smoothly.
People who can't wrap their heads around trying to monetize these businesses aren't trying that hard. It would be naive to assume that the management teams of Twitter or FriendFeed or Disqus don't have four or five strategies for monetization in their business plans that they are evaluating. Just because people aren't currently executing a business model doesn't mean they don't have two or three they are ready to turn on at the right moment.
Well, can it be that "people aren't currently executing a business model" because they don't have jack when it comes to it? I mean, it's one thing to show a business model on paper and colourful presentation slides; but history dictates that generating real money and becoming profitable quarter by quarter involves a tad bit more than story telling skills.
It's a bit like super cars. The specs for a Honda NSX looks great on paper. But when it really comes down to taking it for a spin, Ayrton Senna can make it look like a dream. Give it to a teenager and things will not go that smoothly.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
TechCrunch50 Conference 2008
The TechCrunch50 Conference aims to find the best start-ups and launch them in front of the industry’s most influential VCs, corporations, fellow entrepreneurs and press. The 2008 event is under way.
Checkout Ashton's new startup Blah Girls, pitched by the man himself.
Friday, September 05, 2008
RedHat enters the Virtualization game
RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 4, 2008--Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the acquisition of Qumranet, Inc. The acquisition includes Qumranet's virtualization solutions, including its KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine) platform and SolidICE offering, a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), which together present a comprehensive virtualization platform for enterprise customers. In addition, Qumranet's talented team of professionals that develop, test and support Qumranet solutions, and its leaders of the open source community KVM project, will join Red Hat.
Read the full press release here. According to industry sources, total value of the deal is $107 million in hard cash.
MySQL founder Michael Widenius quits Sun
The main author of the database engine (the M in LAMP) and founder of MySQL AB, which was recently acquired by Sun for $1 billion has called it a day. It is rumored that Brian Aker will take his place.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Google's Chrome comic, Stripped
One thought I had when reading the first ten or so pages of Google's Chrome Comic is "This is one boring, longass comic with way too much jargon." I stopped reading half way through and thought I'll read the rest once they decide to put out a version for Linux.
Incidentally, the sentiment is shared by those at portfolio.com and 4chan as well.
Incidentally, the sentiment is shared by those at portfolio.com and 4chan as well.
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