JumpBox

Tempe, Ariz.  (Press Release) ~ December 17, 2008 — JumpBox, publisher of virtual appliances which provide the easiest way to trial, develop, and deploy applications, today announced the release of 38 Open Source applications to the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service. The release enables server application deployment, configuration, and management almost completely independent of any user hardware.

Organizations have long sought to empower themselves with software that enhances productivity,” says Kimbro Staken, CEO, JumpBox. “JumpBox now offers the ability to do so without procuring hardware, or downloading any software at all.”

JumpBox offers small to mid-sized organizations a library of Open Source applications packaged as pre-built, pre-configured virtual appliances through JumpBox Open, its annual subscription service.  Public Amazon Machine Images (AMI) for twelve JumpBox applications, including Ruby on Rails, Drupal, SugarCRM and more have been made available for free. AMIs for the full suite of 38 applications are available to plus and premium subscribers to JumpBox Open.

“The combination of JumpBox and EC2 signals a new era of agility and flexibility for virtualized organizations,” says Staken. “Imagine enabling better customer service almost instantly with SugarCRM or deploying a Ruby on Rails application for testing in minutes. EC2 provides cost effective, scalable computing power; JumpBox provides the application packaged for instant deployment.”

A JumpBox packages an application’s software, dependencies, and application data into a single virtual application that deploys in minutes locally, or hosted to major computing, virtualization, and cloud computing platforms. Among other enhanced features, a JumpBox provides an intuitive user interface to quickly guide users through deployment, a web-based control panel for simplified management of system functions, and a backup system that enables data security and portability.

For more information, visit JumpBox on the web at http://www.jumpbox.com

All brands, product names, company names, trademarks and service marks are the properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

JumpBox Media Contact:
Steven Shaffer
JumpBox, Inc.
http://www.jumpbox.com
480.967.5897

MySQL in a Nutshell, 2nd ed.

Behind virtually every web application, there’s a database management system.

Ever used Facebook? Guess what? It runs on a (huge!) database. What about your favorite discussion forum? Are you into auto maintenance, fly fishing, or (if you’re like my wife) do you like to swap recipes, trade amusing anecdotes about your kids, or post blog articles? All database-driven.

Many of the most popular, thriving websites are database driven. Behind the scenes many Web 2.0 websites are running MySQL, Sun Microsystem‘s open source database. (There are other popular databases from Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM — but that’s another story.)

MySQL is the M in LAMP — the very popular Open Source web site platform/framework (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, PHP, Python). MySQL is the database used with WordPress (the software that runs this VVN blog). MySQL is the default database server used with Ruby on Rails.

If MySQL is the world’s most popular open-source database, then MySQL in a Nutshell (2nd ed.) by Russell J. T. Dyer is the Encyclopedia Britannica of MySQL. Weighing in at 545 pages, the book is divided into five parts:

1. Tutorial – A brief tutorial on installing MySQL and performing basic database management tasks (35 pages).
2. Statement and Function Reference – A comprehensive reference to SQL statements, clauses, and functions implemented by MySQL. (SQL is the standard language implemented by all major database management systems, but MySQL, Oracle, MS SQLServer, and the rest all have their own quirks.) This section weighs in at nearly 300 pages, and covers database user administration, data manipulation, and database replication, and more. String function, date and time functions, mathematical functions, and flow control functions are described here, too.
3. Client and Server Administration – A guide to MySQL server and client configuration and administration (90 pages). This is where you will learn the difference between mysqld (the database server) and mysql (the command-line client), and the configuration options of each. A reference to command-line utilities such as mysqladmin, mysqlcheck and mysqldump is also included.
4. Programming APIs – A 100-page guide to three popular programming language APIs – C, Perl, and PHP – which websites or programs use to interface with MySQL.
5. Quick Reference – A 15-page set of appendices with a quick reference to the data types, operators (arithmetic, relational, and logical), and environment variables used by MySQL.

If you are an absolute beginner to MySQL and database management systems, this book might not be the best first choice for you. A good place to start instead might be here. But if you know that MySQL is in your software development or web site development future, MySQL in a Nutshell deserves a place on your bookshelf.

The news about Microsoft’s Open Source Web Platform Installer probably took a few people by surprise this week. Game plans and strategies are changing quickly, and enterprise open source governance policies (PDF) may need to be reviewed or revised to keep up with the rapid pace of change. Projects like FOSSology and FossBazaar are designed to grapple with governance issues.

Open Source in the Enterprise – 2008, an O’Reilly Radar Report starts with the question/premise: “It’s no longer IF, but HOW?”  O’Reilly’s new report is for CIOs, CTOs, IT managers, and business owners who want to make smart decisions about deploying open source. (Disclaimer: O’Reilly makes money selling books about open source software.)

So how do you use open source software in your business? How do you define policies for using open source? How do you govern IT? What are the best practices in the industry today?

The O’Reilly Radar Report, Open Source in the Enterprise – 2008, is authored by Bernard Golden (CEO of Navica).

Mr. Golden starts out by telling us that open source is “growing at a compound rate of 55%”. The number of projects hosted at SourceForge has grown from around 12,500 in 2000 to nearly 200,000 by year-end 2007. However, Mr. Golden also reminds us that Open Source adoption statistics are not very reliable at this point:

It is extremely challenging to assess how much open source is being used within enterprises today. One of the traditional methods of use identification (vendor reports) is missing, as most open source software is downloaded anonymously and copied/redistributed extensively. Self-reporting by enterprises cannot be relied upon, either, as many companies are unwilling to self-report in the interest of avoiding conflict with existing vendors or keeping competitive information confidential.

He goes on to explain his method of research, which involved examining job posting data — looking for tell tale markers of Open Source adoption in various enterprises.

The report lists 6 drivers for Enterprise Open Source Adoption, and follows each with case studies, and analysis of best practices:

1. Agility and Scale ( case study – PayPal)
2. Quality and Security (case study – Coverity)
3. Breaking Vendor Lockin (case study – Kaplan test services)
4. Cost (case study – Big Lots)
5. Sovereignty (case study – open source in Brazil)
6. Innovation (case study – AMQP at JP Morgan/Chase)

The O’Reilly report concludes with details on how to create an Open Source Action Plan.

The critical task at this stage of open source use is to bring it into the open and recognize that it will be an important part of IT initiatives going forward. Don’t underestimate this issue: a recent CIO magazine survey found that about 50% of enterprises claim that they are currently using open source, while 45% cited support concerns as a reason restricting its use—whereas the reality is that nearly every IT organization has open source running today. The first step to solving a problem is confronting it, and the challenge for early open source users is to be honest about their actual circumstances.

I found the report to be well researched and written in a non-technical, jargon-free manner. The case studies are helpful. You might find the report helpful also.

Disclaimer: The values, viewpoints and opinions expressed are totally my own, and do not necessarily reflect the values, viewpoints, or opinions of my employer, clients, suppliers, or any other affiliation.

Java is “really open” Open Source now. Almost.

Yahoo reported this hot Java news on Earth Day, and Slashdot reported it and rehashed it on World Book Day, eWeek analyzed it last Wednesday, and snail mailed it on Monday, and I’m finally mentioning it on Bring Your Child to Work Day. I hope my 13 year old daughter doesn’t ask me to explain the difference between FOSS and “free beer”, or stump me with questions about how the CDDL is different than the GPL. I just enjoy drinking the free coffee. I drink the free coffee every day at work. Why? I just like it. Don’t ask me any difficult questions.

But seriously… all joking aside, seems like Jonathan Schwartz really gets it.

The first package I tried was v1.3, and I was impressed with how easy it was to download, unzip, and get Ruby, PHP, mySQL, and Apache up and running. In addition to the great new Ruby tools, you get PHP, mySQL, and phpMyAdmin in the install package, because that is the quickest way to configure an OpenSource management tool for your mySQL databases.

Includes Mongrel 1.0.1 support.

Very cool. Highly recommended.

What do you think? What’s wrong with your CMS (Content Management System) and how can we make it better? Is your CMS way too complicated, or just the right tool for the job?