When open source meets cloud computing: convergence of historical trends

Open source code is a model that utilizes swarm intelligence to develop software in an open environment. Cloud computing is a new IT delivery model that serves everything. At present, open source and cloud computing, respectively, represent the historical trend of software development and IT service model change, and form a powerful impetus to the development of cloud computing. Open source is always an open topic in almost every professional conference on cloud computing, and, conversely, cloud computing has become the hottest application area for open source models.

Open source becomes the mainstream model of software production

Open source software existed long before commercial software was born as an independent industry. It can even be said that computer software is inherently open source and free. Until February 3, 1976, Bill Gates published the famous "Open Letter to Hobbyists" (a letter to computer amateurs), proposed the software "copyright" (Copy right) concept, formally announced into the business software era.

Subsequently, the commercial software domain rose a Big Mac. Open-source software has also been strongly suppressed by commercial software. At the height of Microsoft, everyone was very pessimistic about the fate of open source. But the observation found that almost every successful business software behind, there is always a relatively successful open source software, such as Linux in Windows,mysql to Oracle and so on. Therefore, Microsoft Ballmer will open source with Google and Apple and called Microsoft's three big rivals.

However, as software becomes increasingly internet-based, Open-source software has begun to outperform commercial software in a number of areas. The latest statistics show that 65% of Web servers use open source Apache Web server, far more than Microsoft IIS 12%, open source browser Firefox and Chrome total accounted for 66%, ie is twice times. In enterprise IT systems, open source software is increasingly taking a larger share because of the significant cost advantage. A 2008 survey showed that 58% of businesses are using Linux. As a software development model, open source has gradually entered the mainstream view.

The biggest contribution of open source is the birth of the Internet. Yahoo, Google, Amazon, Facebook and other Internet hegemony, are a large number of free FreeBSD, Linux, Apache Web server, such as open source software to build their own system, it can be said that the open source software "nurturing" under the rise. Unlike Microsoft, these Internet companies have open-source genes in their bones, and software sales are no longer their source of revenue. Therefore, open source will not be a threat to them, but also contribute to cost reduction and technical upgrading. Today, the Internet giant, in turn, has become a new power to drive open source, which also constitutes the flowing of open source development.

Cloud computing and open source mutually promote mutual development

The technology and service model of cloud computing is born in internet companies, and the open source gene is naturally inherited.

Today, the trend of cloud computing open source is mighty. According to Black Duck, at the end of 2010, the platform-type Open-source cloud computing project reached more than 470, and 40% of the open source projects launched in 2011 were related to cloud computing (another 19% related to mobile and 15% to enterprise applications). Open stack as the most popular IaaS open source platform, launched from NASA and Rackspace in just two years, has attracted 183 companies to participate in the field of cloud computing players full admission, including HP, Dell, Intel, Cisco, VMware and other giants. Core technology originated from Google, and by Yahoo initially launched the open source large data platform Hadoop, has established a more complete ecological chain, applications throughout the Internet, finance, media and other fields, become the standard of large data analysis.

Recently, even the former business software overlord Microsoft had to use open source to package its own products. In June 2012, Microsoft changed its previous practice of supporting proprietary products by announcing open source technologies such as Ubuntu, CentOS, Python, PHP, and MySQL on the Azure platform. Microsoft has also set up Microsoft Open Technologies, a company that specializes in Open-source business. To enable other Open-source software to run better on Microsoft's cloud platform, Microsoft has also increased its contribution to open source software, such as its contribution to the Linux kernel, which has reached 150,000 lines of code, exceeding 1% of the total code and ranking among the company's contributions. As a banner of commercial software, Microsoft's approach to open source has further confirmed that open source has become a mainstream approach to cloud computing software development.

There are two main reasons behind the combination of cloud computing and the open source model.

One is that open source cloud computing can help break technology monopolies such as Amazon and Google. Cloud computing attacks, it manufacturers, software companies and telecom operators are facing a severe challenge of transformation. Companies such as Amazon and Google, by virtue of their first advantage, have been technologically ahead. It is difficult for any enterprise to develop a complete cloud computing solution independently. Therefore, active participation in open source projects, these companies to grasp the cloud computing technology, the development of cloud computing services to the springboard.

Second, open source cloud computing is a new way of forming the fact standard. Public, private, and mixed cloud coexistence are common expectations of cloud computing deployment scenarios. In this case, migrating applications and data across different clouds is unavoidable. Currently, cloud computing standards are missing, and the most worrying problem for users is that they are locked by provider technology. Because in this case, once the use of a public cloud services or the purchase of a private cloud system, it is tantamount to "pirate." migrating applications and data to other platforms will pay a high price. Although there are many organizations leading the development of standards, but compared with the standards written on paper, the practical test of the fact that the standard will be more vitality. The open source cloud computing platform provides an opportunity for equal participation in the formation of factual standards, which is in the interest of most industry people.

Based on the above two reasons, from the traditional equipment manufacturing, software, telecommunications operations, chips and other areas of the team for a common goal to come together, forming a driving force for open source cloud computing.

Open source cloud computing faces worries

Despite the prospect of optimism and dynamism, open source cloud computing, like any other Open-source project, also faces some worries.

The first is the lack of a strong and sustained contribution to open source cloud computing. In OpenStack, for example, there are reports that while there are more than 150 core developers and 183 company members, only one-third of the companies have contributed in some way to the code, mostly with a hitchhiking mentality. In addition, from the development of open source history, generally are first patented products, and then open source to achieve, open source has not been out of the "cottage" shadow. Hadoop, for example, is a replica of Google's cloud computing platform, but Hadoop is the industry's favourite. As early as 2009, Google began to develop a new generation of Dremel large data platform.

Second, open source cloud computing lacks a strong control mechanism. Open source organizations are often loose interests, the interests of members are difficult to reconcile, easily lead to version splitting, such as the same as the distribution of Hadoop, Hortonworks and Cloudera development direction of divergence. The classification of versions will create interoperability barriers that damage the value of the eco-chain. This is like Android today's version fragmentation, which will cause great trouble to application developers.

Finally, open source cloud computing lacks perfect support and service. Cloud computing platform is a complex system, often to integrate a large number of products and services. The open source cloud computing platform often does not get enough support when it comes to integrating proprietary products. For example, it is reported that although OpenStack supports a variety of virtual machines, but only simple operations, such as opening and closing, many of the deep features of private manufacturers are not open. In addition, in the after-sales service, based on open source private cloud provider to establish a sound service system has a long way to go.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)