Open source projects for cloud on rise

WALTHAM, USA: Open source projects aimed at enabling enterprise IT application development for cloud computing are proliferating, according to an analysis by Black Duck Software, provider of products and services for accelerating software development through the managed use of open source software.

"In the wake of the financial crisis of the past 18-24 months and as enterprise IT application developers re-architect applications for cloud environments, they are turning to open source software for its low cost, availability and breadth of possible solutions," said Melinda-Carol Ballou, program director, application life-cycle management & executive strategies, IDC.

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"Open source's low barriers to entry and abundance offer significant time-to-market advantages and make it an emerging and important element of cloud development strategies for enterprise developers. At the same time, organizations must put in effective open source assessment and management capabilities to leverage it as part of a complex software sourcing strategy for the cloud and for other environments,"  added Ballou.

Black Duck analyzed its KnowledgeBase of open source project information to uncover trends in open source projects for cloud computing. Although many open source projects useful for cloud development and deployment don't specifically reference cloud, Black Duck found almost 400 projects that did.

Also read: Open Source enterprise apps on the rise: IDC

The analysis shows a 70 percent growth from 2008 to 2009 in projects specifically associated with cloud computing. These cloud-specific open source projects account for nearly 50 million lines of code said a report.

"When we began the analysis we expected to find projects focused on security, privacy, and management," said Peter Vescuso, executive vice president, Black Duck Software.

He added, "The variety of projects that self-identify as 'cloud' is much broader in scope, reflecting the sophistication of the cloud application ecosystem and confirming the importance of OSS cloud software developed to support the needs of enterprise IT."