ERP, the Open Way
There was a time when installing an ERP application, even for evaluation only, meant having an army of consultants, a lot of money, and a lot of time. So when I heard that Openbravo ERP is now available on Solaris (Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris), I had to try it out.
Openbravo ERP is a Java-based open source product. It's among the most active projects on sourceforge, and has received accolades from the likes of Infoworld and LinuxWorld.
I deployed this on OpenSolaris, following Jignesh's instructions. The process was pretty simple, as all the dependencies (Java, Tomcat, PostgreSQL) are in the software repository and can be installed with pkg. I had this up and running in less than an hour:
The total software acquisition cost, including OS, database, middleware and application? Zero. Of course, support contracts would be needed to run this in production, but zero is a pretty low barrier for people willing to evaluate ERP the open way.
Posted at 05:46PM Oct 28, 2008 by hugo in Sun |
OpenSolaris draws attention from Data Management applications
There's feverish activity in the Solaris storage stack, in areas like CIFS and COMSTAR, to name a couple. I struggle to keep up, but regular visits to the Storage Community at opensolaris.org always help to stay on top.
Not surprisingly, we're also seeing a surge in software development in applications that handle business critical data. It's an area ripe for innovation, where competitive advantages can be obtained by exploiting the right OS features. Many companies have products based on open source and provide a free community edition, so they see a natural synergy with OpenSolaris and have decided to offer their software on this platform.
One such example is Zmanda. Their Zmanda Recovery Manager is very popular in enterprise MySQL deployments, where efficient data backup & recovery is critical. ZRM is able to provide extremely fast full database backups on Solaris by taking advantage of ZFS snapshots, a great example of leveraging a key feature of the OS. Zmanda was one of the participants at the recent OpenStorage Summit, where Mark Carlson had a chance to interview Paddy Sreenivasan, their VP of Engineering.
Another example is MailArchiva. This application provides email archiving for popular servers like MS Exchange, Postfix, Sendmail and Lotus, among others. The Open Source Edition, available at sourceforge, now includes a download for OpenSolaris. Not only is it very easy to install, but it also comes with an SMF manifest:
$ svcs -l mailarchiva
fmri svc:/network/mailarchiva:default
name MailArchiva
enabled true
state online
next_state none
state_time Fri Oct 17 14:39:26 2008
logfile /var/svc/log/network-mailarchiva:default.log
restarter svc:/system/svc/restarter:default
contract_id 111
dependency require_all/error svc:/network/loopback:default (online)
dependency optional_all/error svc:/network/physical:default (disabled)
dependency require_all/none svc:/system/filesystem/local (online)
By enabling it as a Solaris service, system administrators can manage and monitor MailArchiva in a familiar way, eliminating the need for ad hoc scripting.
Posted at 10:10AM Oct 20, 2008 by hugo in Sun |
It's still Solaris, but now in two flavors
With the introduction of OpenSolaris 2008.05, we have a nimbler vehicle to get Solaris innovation in the hands of developers and customers. This also marked a significant shift in our OS release model. I've heard from many people who have a long history of working with Solaris and are, shall we say, intrigued about what all the OpenSolaris announcements mean for their own development or deployment plans.
As a member of Sun's ISV Engineering organization, I often get involved in OS roadmap discussions. Nowadays, the first point I emphasize is that the Solaris platform has two delivery vehicles: Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris. They share a common origin, but have important differences, particularly in their life cycles. One does not replace the other: they coexist, catering to different needs.
It's important for developers who contribute to the Solaris ecosystem (there are well over 10,000 applications and counting) to understand how these two release trains operate, to determine how OpenSolaris may influence their own product plans, and how they can use it to reach a wider audience.
In an effort to capture some of these facts, Marty Duey and I have recorded a webcast. If you've been hearing a lot of buzz about OpenSolaris, but haven't spent too much time figuring out what it's all about, this could be a good starting point. Take a look... and share your comments. We're listening.
Posted at 10:29AM Oct 13, 2008 by hugo in Sun | Comments[2]
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