Science center switches to open source

It’s using Gluecode’s Advanced Server portal software, which is part of a new suite announced last week. Gluecode Enterprise Server 3.5 combines the vendor’s enterprise portal framework and security management tools with business process management capabilities.

Mike Hogarth looked to open source software when he decided to replace a 6-year-old homegrown portal application that had become too cumbersome to maintain.

“I was looking for a basic framework on top of which I could build applications,” says Hogarth, a faculty member in the school of medicine at the University of California, Davis, and a lead informaticist at the Center for Biophotonics. He wanted the framework to be standards-based and handle functions such as user group management, security and single sign-on. “These are things I wish I had put into my original portal,” Hogarth says.

He chose software from Gluecode Software and is in the process of launching a new portal for the Center for Biophotonics, a UC Davis-based initiative dedicated to exploring the use of light energy, or photons, in biological science. The portal is aimed at letting researchers from all over the world share their findings and collaborate with peers.

Hogarth is using Gluecode’s Advanced Server portal software, which is part of a new suite announced last week. Gluecode Enterprise Server 3.5 combines the vendor’s enterprise portal framework and security management tools with business process management capabilities.

Gluecode’s products are built on open source technologies from the nonprofit Apache Software Foundation, including the Apache Jetspeed portal project, says Winston Damarillo, CEO of Gluecode. Enterprise Server combines technology from 14 Apache projects into one product, Damarillo says. When users buy Gluecode’s managed open source products, they get the run-time and the full source code.

“It’s open source, but it’s done in a way that is different,” Hogarth says. “You get access to source code, but you pay, which is fine with me. I can tweak it, I can really see how it was built.”

Hogarth is focused this year on delivering new portal functions, including a biophotonics search engine; glossaries tailored to end-user groups; and analysis tools that let users map published biophotonics work to researchers working in the field to find scientists who might be working on compatible projects. “The discovery of ‘who’s doing work in my area?’ tends to be a difficult task,” Hogarth says.

Open source software lets Hogarth migrate the center’s existing “legacy-like” application to a Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition-based framework and focus his team’s energies on new features rather than code maintenance, he says.

“I don’t see value in supporting my own code base – I wouldn’t have the resources to support 60,000 lines of code development,” he says. “I would much rather focus my resources on building the collaborative features.”

Gluecode Enterprise Server 3.5 costs $75,000 for the full software stack, plus $4,000 per month per deployment. Gluecode’s Advanced Server portal software starts at $20,000 plus $2,000 per month, per deployment. The vendor also offers a free download of its low-end product, Gluecode Portal Foundation Server.

Gluecode, which launched in 2001 and is based in Los Angeles, recently received first-round venture funding of $5 million.