Open source storage, management and virtualization companies made list
Ten open source vendors made Network World’s Companies to Watch list one year ago. Read this story to find out what they’re up to today.
One year ago, Network World highlighted 10 open source companies on the rise in such diverse fields as storage, VoIP, systems management, virtualization and the use of software to aid disaster relief.
Read on to find out why we named these vendors “Companies to Watch” last year, and get updated on where they are today.
Find out which companies made this year’s list.
1. Cleversafe
Why it made the list: As companies start taking a closer look at building grids, Cleversafe provides an open source platform to serve as the foundation for commercial, dispersed storage grids that provide secure storage because data components are scrambled and stored in separate locations.
Highlights from the past year: Cleversafe is trying to build a so-called “storage Internet” and is testing the idea with multiple hosting and access providers that are contributing storage servers and bandwidth. “Our focus for the past year has been enhancing our technology to support the scale required to store the world’s data,” says Chairman and CTO Chris Gladwin.
2. Digium
Why it made the list: The open source Asterisk software is making it easier and more cost-effective for companies to launch VoIP projects. “What [Digium] can do for telephony is incredibly powerful and disruptive,” says David Skok, a general partner at Matrix Partners.
Highlights from the past year: Digium is building new headquarters in Huntsville, Ala. The company says its software is being used in 140 countries, with two million servers running Digium’s open source telephony platform.
3. Hyperic
Why it made the list: Application and Web monitoring from such big vendors such as CA, IBM and BMC Software can be bulky, complex and difficult to deploy. Hyperic takes a different approach to Web infrastructure management and has created a simpler tool that lets IT managers monitor commercial and open source technologies from a single portal.
Highlights from the past year: Hyperic won the Best Systems Management Tool product excellence award at LinuxWorld this summer. In June, Hyperic secured $6.1 million in venture capital funding.
4. Optaros
Why it made the list: Optaros, which provides consulting and systems integration services focused on open source software, can be the guiding hand for enterprises considering using open source to solve business problems. It helps customers determine where open source makes the most sense and helps put together open source components to create platforms for business.
Highlights from the past year: Optaros released an online catalogue of open source projects to help IT managers find the best free software. Of more than 140,000 open source applications available, Optaros selected 262 projects that are enterprise-ready. Optaros also secured $13 million in funding last November.
5. Qlusters
Why it made the list: The number of open source systems-management vendors is growing, and Qlusters’ product, openQRM, has proved its worth in commercial deployments. The open source platform benefits enterprise customers by offering plug-ins that let the platform hook into existing systems, whether open source, proprietary or internally developed.
Highlights from the past year: Qlusters raised $10.36 million in funding this summer, bringing its total to $33 million.
6. rPath
Why it made the list: Server virtualization is paving the way for simpler application deployments, in which an operating system and application can be packaged and deployed in a virtual machine for flexibility. VMware has begun offering preconfigured, prepackaged application appliances, but rPath provides an open source foundation for independent software vendors (ISV) to use in creating these appliances. Enterprise users should be watching and pushing their ISVs to take this approach, because such application appliances mean the end of complex, multicomponent application deployments.
Highlights from the past year: rPath’s platform for creating and maintaining software and virtual appliances has been downloaded 1 million times as of July 31, and was named “most innovative software idea” at a Computing Technology Industry Association conference this summer.
7. Sahana
Why it made the list: The Sahana Project — a secure Web portal that includes applications used to coordinate and collaborate during relief efforts following disasters — illustrates the humanitarian benefit of open source: It can be useful to large organizations dealing with the aftermath of disasters.
Highlights from the past year: Sahana won the Free Software Foundation Award for Projects of Social Benefit in March, beating out finalists Project Gutenberg and One Laptop Per Child.
8. WSO2
Why it made the list: Most existing middleware was designed to handle transaction-heavy, Java-based applications, so Web-services capabilities had to be layered on top. WSO2 is building its middleware specifically for Web services and using an open source model to encourage community involvement in its development.
Highlights from the past year: WSO2 rolled out an enterprise service bus in June to help businesses manage Web services and service-oriented architectures.
9. Zenoss
Why it made the list: Zenoss provides a management package that lets users manage and monitor everything from network devices to servers to applications to environmental conditions. The free software should be of interest to midsize companies, which haven’t had access to these capabilities in the past because of cost issues.
Highlights from the past year: Zenoss got the highest marks among three open source management products evaluated in comparative reviews by Network World’s Clear Choice Test in June. Zenoss earned higher marks than Hyperic and GroundWork Monitor for providing excellent discovery of network resources and an intuitive user interface.
10. Zmanda
Why it made the list: By basing its products on open source software, Zmanda can offer a cost-effective data protection alternative to costly proprietary offerings from such companies as EMC.
Highlights from the past year: Zmanda secured $8 million in funding in May. The previous month, the vendor released a Zmanda Recovery Manager backup and recovery solution designed specifically for the open source database MySQL.
