Open-Source Platform for API Management launched by Alcatel-Lucent

In a bid to make it easier for operators to open up their networks to developers, Alcatel-Lucent has introduced an open source and cloud-based API (application programming interface) management platform called apiGrove.

Operators have largely missed the boat on the smartphone application revolution. But by publishing APIs and opening up their networks -- including features such as billing, location and presence information -- to developers, operators can get a second chance to play a more important role.

However, for the promise of APIs to be fully realized, there needs to be standardization of the underlying technology, according to Laura Merling, senior vice president of Application Enablement at Alcatel-Lucent.

"I believe that API management is going to be a part of everybody's business and therefore it needs standardization, and also needs community input on what it should look like," said Merling.

ApiGrove will make it easier for operators to try the concept without having to make much initial investment, according to Merling.

An API mangement platform is used to publish the interfaces, as well as configure rules for how they can be used, including who can access them and the number of transactions that are allowed.

The apiGrove installation package, source code, and documentation are available for download from GitHub. The ultimate goal with apiGrove is to turn in into an Apache project.

"It has been submitted to go through the necessary incubation process, but that takes time ... A lot of it is about community adoption, so we are doing a lot of outreach to drive adoption," said Merling.

Alcatel-Lucent also believes that API management makes sense running in a cloud, as opposed to on-premise in the operator's data center. In addition, ApiGrove could also manage the cloud platforms' own APIs, exposing their capabilities to developers.

The company is talking to a number of cloud providers, and is making interfaces for its own platform CloudBand manageable via apiGrove as well.

Alcatel-Lucent will also offer Premium API Management Platform before the end of the year. Operators will have to pay for this version, which will have more advanced cluster and security features including XML validation than apiGrove, according to Merling.

For example, the Speaker Manager feature lets an operator keep track of rate limiting across a cluster of API management instances.

The Premium API Management Platform will also include a service composition framework, which allows several API calls to be integrated and presented to developers and in the process make their work easier.

The service composition framework currently is being evaluated for being made open source, as well.

The end-game for Alcatel-Lucent is to help turn networks into a software platform, where all equipment comes with an interface for developers, Merling said.

Twitter Joins Linux

Twitter uses and builds a fair amount of open-source software, so it wasn’t too shocking when we read in our inboxes this morning that the social media startup has joined the Linux Foundation.

“Not only is Twitter built on Linux, but open source software is core to its technology strategy,” said a Linux Foundation rep to VentureBeat via email.
“It’s investing even more in the platform now as the company evolves and positions itself for the future. Linux has become even more dominant among web-based companies as the ‘hacker way’ has become pervasive among the newest generation of startups.”
Ah, yes, the Hacker Way. Or should we say, the “Hacker Way.”
Espousing open-source ideals, at least in spirit, has become increasingly common among web startups, especially in the Bay Area. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg famously wrote a “hacker way” mini-treatise into his company’s SEC IPO filing.
But in fact, while companies like Facebook and Twitter rely on open-source technologies and programming languages to get their various jobs done, their businesses are conceptually based on proprietary software, not open-source software.
As famous hacker Eric “esr” Raymond pointed out in a recent interview with VentureBeat, the true hacker way means “to give control to the individual, to respect his or her privacy, to create tools for autonomy and liberty, and to encourage creative re-use of software” — only parts of which are built into Twitter’s products.
While Twitter has open-sourced some of its software — a load-balancer called Iago and a design framework called Bootstrap, for example — vast expanses of Twitter code remain under lock and key, and the company’s recent and coming API changes means it’s getting farther away from anyone’s definition of free and open-source software.
This is a problem. Specifically, it’s a recruitment problem.
Twitter needs to continue to pull in the best, brightest, neckbeardiest developers the world can offer, and it can’t do so without some commitment to open-source communities. The company actually recently hosted an open-source event with thinly veiled recruitment mechanisms built in just for this reason: great developers and open-source software go together like peanut butter and jelly, and the more you can convince a great developer that your company believes in open-source, the more likely you are to recruit great developers in a highly competitive hiring environment.
All that being said, Twitter does have a vested interest in helping to advance the cause of Linux in particular, and some participation in open-source communities is better than none at all.
As a web-based business, Twitter, like every other web service, is supported by tens of thousands of Linux servers. In a statement on today’s news, the company said it intends to partner with the Linux Foundation to promote and protect Linux, the open-source operating system.
“Linux and its capability to be heavily tweaked is fundamental to our technology infrastructure,” said Twitter open-source manager Chris Aniszczyk in the statement.
“By joining the Linux Foundation, we can support an organization that is important to us and collaborate with a community that is advancing Linux as fast as we are improving Twitter.”

Open Source DAM Software's 1.5 version releases by Razuna

The newest version of the open source digital asset management (DAM) platform Razuna is now available.

Razuna ApS announced late last week the availability of version 1.5 of the platform, which can be downloaded, used via a hosted service or run on a dedicated cloud server.

Customization, Rendering Farm
Enhancements in the new release include an option to fully customize Razuna, an option to log in using social media username and password via the integrated Janrain plugin, a new Rendering Farm functionality, and major updates to search and the overall look and feel.

The Rendering Farm distributes the job of encoding many files to other servers, whether a dedicated one in-house or one in the cloud. Customization options include the ability to modify tabs, dialogs or look and feel, and the company said that the new caching system “dramatically improves” overall performance and supports such caching engines as Memcached and MongoDB.

Razuna now supports scheduled backups of assets and data within the platform, as well as the ability to export metadata to a spreadsheet.

There’s also additional support for cloud storage, such as Amazon S3, Nirvanix or Eucalyptus, and there’s a new version of the application programming interface (API), which facilitates integration into an organizational environment.

Partner Program Overhaul
CTO and Razuna founder Nitai Aventagiato told news media that, with the latest additions Razuna is “truly an enterprise level digital asset management software” that is available to companies of any size, via the hosted offering.

Later this month, a new partner and OEM program will be launched, which the company said was due to an increasing demand for OEM solutions. CEO Jens Strandbygaard said in a statement that the partner program is undergoing a complete overhaul, adding that the API has allowed software vendors “to embed Razuna deep into their existing technologies” to leverage enterprise-level DAM features.

Strandbygaard also said that resellers and systems integrators will benefit from the new program, “since they will be awarded a higher commission as well as being able to offer our enterprise package to large scale clients.”

The Denmark-based Razuna, founded in 2005, said that its platform is used by more than 5000 businesses worldwide every day.

Mashery Accelerates API Success With Open Source Developer Tools

I/O Wraps and I/O Alfred Increase Access to APIs for App Development

Mashery, the leading provider of API Management technology platforms and services, today announced new additions to its successful suite of open source API Power Tools. Designed as painkillers that enable developers to create and release apps faster, Mashery's API Power Tools now include I/O Wraps, a new API client library tool. As the API equivalent of an SDK (Software Development Kit), I/O Wraps gives developers externally built open source resources native to a variety of programming languages.

Public APIs are currently experiencing record growth because they enable developers across every industry to accelerate app development. Mashery created I/O Wraps based on feedback received from its 160,000-strong developer base. Developed under open source licenses to encourage collaboration and accelerate adoption of APIs, I/O Wraps launches today with Mashery customers USA TODAY ( http://developer.usatoday.com ) and Whit.li ( http://developer.whit.li ) both offering PHP and Java SDKs created with I/O Wraps.

"APIs that are frustrating to work with often fail to attract the necessary level of developer engagement," said Delyn Simons, Vice President of Developer Platform, Mashery. "The overwhelming response to Mashery's open source I/O Docs project over the last year revealed to us that the competition for developer mindshare and talent is heating up. APIs with strong open source developer tools are more accessible and are therefore more likely to succeed."

The benefits of language-specific client libraries for API providers speak for themselves, and deliver a community benefit aligned with the principles of the open source movement. And for developers, the benefits resolve many common API integration pain points -- a clean consistent interface, the ability to execute live API calls for accelerated learning, method exploration, and testing from a single location.

After just more than a year in the market, I/O Docs, Mashery's first open source API Power Tool, has seen adoption by over 30 major API providers. In the spirit of open source development, several leaders in the online platform and tools space, including SendGrid, HubSpot, DataSift and DocuSign, have contributed code back to the project or integrated it into their API for developer use.

"Implementing I/O Docs for SendGrid has been extremely valuable to both our customers and our support team," said SendGrid API Evangelist Brandon West. "I/O Docs lets developers see exactly what they are going to get from our API without having to write a line of code, and it helps support test and debug API calls without having to use command line tools. It's a win for everyone."

Mashery also announced the availability of I/O Alfred, a developer tool for integrating API calls in the Alfred Mac tool. Mashery has created a set of Alfred app extensions that use the Rovi, Klout, Twitter and Twilio APIs to give Mac users access to useful information, such as movie data and social influence scores. I/O Wraps and I/O Alfred join existing open source developer tools offered by Mashery, including interactive API documentation, HTML5 code samples, OAuth Helpers for JavaScript and .NET, and more.

Amid the legal maze, Oracle looks to extend copyright

If the US court decides APIs can be copyrighted, a bizarre two-tier global software development environment would be created

PITY THE 12 jurors engrossed in the labyrinthine patent and damages trial brought by Oracle over Google’s use of programming language Java in its Android operating system.

They’ve been subjected to weeks of arcane and convoluted details on how code is developed, on programming, on copyright, on patents, on open-source software. The judge himself appeared baffled at times with the complexity and conflicting accounts of engineers, lawyers and management, including the chief executives of both firms. How much worse for the jurors, who must decide on the core issues in the trial.

You could only sympathise with them when they decided last week that they would only part-decide on some of the key points. On May 7th they gave a semi-victory of sorts to Oracle (though both sides were claiming a win). But there’s more to come, and determinations are looming that could have worrying implications for software developers.

The question of how Java may be used by developers is at the heart of this lawsuit.

Oracle took possession of Java when it acquired Sun Microsystems. Versatile Java is ubiquitous on computing devices, from computers to mobile handsets, enabling applications to run in numerous operating system environments.

Google developers used Java in Android. Oracle sued Google, arguing that Google failed to license the use of Java and, therefore, Oracle would like a hefty $1 billion in damages. Google argued that Java had been an open-source platform for years, that it had the right to use it freely, and so owes nothing.

Those are the easy bits to understand. The devil is in the detail. The trial has offered some amusing moments, such as Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison not knowing whether Java is free. Then there are the duelling slide sets – Google and Oracle publicly posted tit-for-tat slide presentations, full of revealing internal emails. Having waded through all this, the jury decided last week that Google did infringe Oracle copyright on 37 APIs – application programming interfaces, a programming tool – and also on nine lines of Android code. But it also decided that Oracle couldn’t go after that $1 billion jackpot.

However, it couldn’t decide whether Google could use a “fair use” argument for Java – that it is entitled to use some portions in the creation of something new, without needing to pay for a licence.

Although there are other questions still to be determined, such as whether some Sun patents were “wilfully infringed”, as Oracle argues, or whether Google developers created code in ignorance of the patents, the copyright question eventually must be returned to by Judge William Alsup. This bit makes many US developers nervous – the issue of whether APIs, the bits of code that let software programs communicate with each other, and hence enable developers to create third-party programs that can plug into another piece of software, can be copyrighted, as Oracle argues.

APIs have never been copyrightable before, because they are not considered to be a creative invention, but simply a list of code elements that enable one piece of software to connect to another piece of software.

If APIs can be copyrighted, the relationship developers have with the companies they develop third-party software for could change. Potentially, developers would now need to pay for or gain permission to use APIs.

Critics argue such a situation is untenable and would stifle invention. At the very least, developers would find it more awkward and costly to create software. Suppliers of cloud services could also find themselves in a challenging position if major cloud providers such as Amazon could copyright its cloud APIs, regulating access to the cloud.

Meanwhile, in a timely ruling, the European Court of Justice determined last week that APIs can’t be copyrighted in Europe, stating, “To accept that the functionality of a computer program can be protected by copyright would amount to making it possible to monopolise ideas, to the detriment of technological progress and industrial development.”

If the US court decides APIs can be copyrighted, a bizarre, two-tier global software development environment would be created, in which US internet companies would likely be at a significant disadvantage, and Europe would be a far more attractive location for cloud service providers and software development.

Three different Cloud Services for Public Beta lauched by HP

HP has released three cloud services, HP Cloud Compute, HP Cloud Object Storage, and HP Cloud Content Delivery Network, for public beta testing.

HP Cloud Services, created with OpenStack technology, is an open-source development architecture that provides storage in the cloud for developers and organizations developing Web applications. It includes a management console, which provides analytics into demand patterns, operational performance, and resource use. OpenStack, founded by NASA and Rackspace Hosting, is a free cloud computing platform created by developers and cloud-computing technologists.

HP Cloud Compute provides customizable, scalable virtual servers accessible from any device with Web access. It includes software, control panels, and RESTful application programming interfaces (APIs) to let users run instances and manage the cloud according to their organization's needs. Appropriate Cloud Compute applications include large-scale data processing, basic Web applications, and multi-tier deployments.

HP Cloud Object Storage provides unlimited scalable data storage in the cloud for any file types, including video and audio. It allows organizations to add or remove any amount of storage capacity for backup and archiving on demand using GET, PUT, and other object requests. Data is accessible anywhere there is Internet access via REST-based APIs. Cloud Object Storage can also serve static content for Web applications.

HP Cloud Content Delivery Network (CDN) is powered by Akamai, and data is cached and distributed using a global network of edge servers. It provides a variety of ways to access data, such as through CLI bindings, jclouds, Ruby Fog, and RESTful APIs. CDN works together with HP Cloud Object Storage to provide data access, compresses files for faster delivery, and uses secure sockets layer for encryption.

For all three services, HP provides data protection using secure data centers, as well as intrusion prevention, role-based access, automated and manual code audits, nose hardening, and application threat analysis. In addition, objects are duplicated and available in multiple zones.

Standing Cloud Extends Capabilities with Support for HP Cloud Services

"Standing Cloud powered by HP Cloud Services" simplifies cloud application deployment and management for HP Cloud Services customers

Standing Cloud (www.standingcloud.com), a leading provider of cloud application management solutions, today announced support for the newly launched HP Cloud Services (http://hpcloud.com), providing HP Cloud Services customers with a vastly simplified way to deploy, manage and distribute applications in the cloud.

The new offering, Standing Cloud powered by HP Cloud Services, leverages HP Cloud Services' infrastructure capabilities and elements of the Standing Cloud Marketplace to provide developers, enterprise users and ISVs with one-stop application hosting, installation and management via scalable virtual servers on demand. It integrates directly with HP Cloud Services and the OpenStack® API.

"We believe that Standing Cloud and HP Cloud Services share a common vision of the infrastructure cloud - one that is intuitive, interoperable, open source-based and user-focused, with a minimum of system administration overhead." said David Jilk, CEO of Standing Cloud. "This collaboration builds on that promise, and we're pleased to be working with them."

The Standing Cloud Marketplace is a comprehensive solution to the challenges faced by Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) providers in moving up to the application layer.

Its intuitive user interface, broad catalog of open-source applications and development platforms, and automated deployment and lifecycle management features help cloud providers meet the application needs of their customers, while its extensive white label configurability meets the branding and integration needs of the provider.

Available application lifecycle management features include automated application monitoring, backups, single-click version upgrades, application cloning, status logs, a browser-based terminal window, and a range of resource scaling options.

The availability of Standing Cloud powered by HP Cloud Services coincides with today's public beta launch of HP Cloud Services.