Where NASA and Instagram get open source databases

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has announced the PostgreSQL 9.2 open source database with native JSON support, covering indexes, replication and performance improvements.

NOTE: JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a text-based data-interchange format programming language that is widely agreed to be "easy for humans to read and write" and is equally easy for machines to "parse and generate" in use. It is based on a subset of the JavaScript programming language and is said to use conventions that are familiar to programmers of the C-family of languages.

But what does "performance improvement" really mean with this kind of technology?

Vendors of all kinds love to use the term "performance" time and time again, so what makes an open source next-generation database operate and, well, perform, so well in this case?

How it works...

The answer appears to lie in PostgreSQL 9.2's ability to execute "linear scalability" across 64 processor cores to share out the burden of processing. This separation of workloads... plus its 'index-only' scans and reductions in CPU power consumption are what actually speed up this product.

NASA, Instagram and HP can't be wrong? Can they?

Organisations including the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, Instagram and NASA run applications on PostgreSQL and HP has adopted it too to power its HP-UX/Itanium solutions.

Improvements in vertical scalability are also said to increase PostgreSQL's ability to efficiently utilise hardware resources on larger servers.

So just how fast is fast here?

Numerically, this means:

* Up to 350,000 read queries per second
* Index-only scans for data warehousing queries
* Up to 14,000 data writes per second

NOTE: PostgreSQL is an open source object-relational database system. It has more than 15 years of active development and runs on all major operating systems, including Linux, UNIX (AIX, BSD, HP-UX, SGI IRIX, Mac OS X, Solaris, Tru64) and Windows.

Morphlabs Delivers Compact OpenStack Infrastructure, Works with Dell

The OpenStack open source cloud platform that, along with CloudStack and Eucalyptus, has lit a fire under those interested in flexible, new cloud solutions, has just celebrated its second anniversary. In July of 2010, Rackspace Hosting and NASA launched the OpenStack initiative, and since then it has been appearing in new distributions, including Rackspace's own one. Now Morphlabs is offering its OpenStack-based cloud infrastructure, dubbed mCloud Helix.

"This Morphlabs solution is valuable to customers interested in a simple deployment for a compact private cloud," said John Igoe, executive director of Cloud and Big Data Solutions at Dell, in conjunction with the announcement. "The combination of Dell PowerEdge C servers and Morphlabs' software enables customers with a streamlined, efficient approach to private cloud infrastructure."

The mCloud Helix solution is purportedly designed to be very scalable, letting users add mCloud Helix units as compute and storage needs increase. The announcement also points to some interesting partnerships, including one with CoreSite, a national provider of powerful, network-rich data centers, which has optimized its infrastructure for customers to deploy their own mCloud Helix units.

As we've said before, the key with all these new cloud platforms will be top-quality support. Through partners such as Dell, it sounds like Morphlabs will be distributing support efforts across hardware and software implementations and vendors.

"The mCloud Helix empowers customers to take home and immediately deploy private clouds using best-of-breed open source software and hardware without requiring a massive CapEx investment," said Morphlabs CEO Winston Damarillo, in the announcement. "Working closely with Dell, we have packed the high performance benefits of mCloud into a remarkably small footprint, making it possible for small and medium businesses to grow industry standard private clouds to match workloads without investing in massive, complex build-outs."

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.