EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
WITH OPEN TWIST
Open source is accelerating the growth of many emerging technologies Ranging from cloud management to defence infrastructure. Here are some such tech spaces to follow, and contribute to, in 2014.
With open source, it become possible for everyone to learn, use, customize, improve and bring emerging technologies into mainstream use. Whether you do research on drug discovery, create animated content to tech complex concepts, build an automatic water spray for your garden, develop an android base mobile system to bring together students in your college , open source gives you an opportunity to be a inventor and innovator.
On cloud 9, with open source cloud management
Present:- The story started a long time ago with software as a service(SaaS), and widened in scope to infrastructure as a service(IaaS), platform as a service(PaaS), and now anything as a service(XaaS)! From data and software to whole IT set-ups, companies and individuals are using tech and tool over the cloud today- on clusters of shared computing resources owned and managed by cloud service providers. Having everything on the cloud is great because it can be accessed from anywhere via internet.
Future:- IT pros are quite excited about open source cloud management these days, and there are many great solution such as OpenStack, Apache’s CloudStack and OW2 focus on IaaS, IaaS, PaaS respectively.CloudStack offers a whole stack of features for IaaS. These include compute orchestration, network as a service, user and account management, a full and open native API and resource accounting –all with a very intuitive UI too.It supports VMware, KVM, XenServer and Xen Cloud platform, and API is compatable with AWS EC2 and S3, enabling organizations to deploy hybrid cloud with ease.Founded by NASA, and supported by Rackspace, Ubantu, Nebula, Red Hat and IBM, OpenStack also offers a highly capable and scalable open source cloud management stack. This result in a very efficient and repeatable application delivery process.
Defending the borders
Present:-The defence space is where the cutting edge is. Here, lives are at stake. Open source has found a place in this vertical, even through Oracle may disagree(http://www.oracle.com/us/products/middleware/cloud-app-foundation/weblogic/dod-and-open-source-software-2012277.pdf). Apart from using open source platform for military intelligence systems, the defence departments of several countries are also using open source design tools to make their equipment.
Future:-Technologies like cloud computing and open designs(of everything from guns to tanks) have definitely changed the performance of the military, irreversibly. One example is the Distributed Common Ground System-Army Standard cloud deployed in Afghanistan, a solution that give access to intelligence and enables fast responses to queries. The DCGS-A
has been built using open source platforms and software. The network consists of 228 servers, 1800+CPU’s, 100 dual six processor operating at 2.80 GHz and 128 dual quad core processors running at 2.93 GHz.It requires 13.92 Terabytes of RAM and 1.032 TB of hard drive storage. The five key technologies at work in the DSC are Hadoop, Hadoop core, Accumulo, Condor and SolrCloud. More info of this project is available at http://dcgsa.apg.army.mil/ . OSINT(open source intelligent solution) proposed by Delhi police is such a project to analyse info available at Internet to prevent against crime as this medium is used by terrorists to communicate.
