Stacks Facilitate Open Source

Spikesource Inc., which provides open-source IT services, has developed a solution to address the lack of uniform integration, certification, testing and support for open-source software.

SpikeSource used the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco last week to announce the production availability of seven preconfigured SpikeSource Core Stacks, as well as the companys related customer subscription service, which provides updates for certified open-source stacks.

SpikeSource also launched its ISV and open-source developer programs, which include an ISV testing and certification service.

The seven stacks incorporate 63 open-source components running on six platforms, including Red Hat Inc.s Red Hat Linux and Novell Inc.s SuSE Linux, as well as Windows. Planned are support for Solaris and for more Linux distributions.

The stacks also support six programming languages and associated services. The betas for the stacks are available for free download.

“We want to provide [enterprises] choice and flexibility across the operating system, the database, the application server and other categories,” said Kim Polese, CEO of SpikeSource, based in Redwood City, Calif.

SpikeSource has already landed one enterprise client, investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, which is working with SpikeSource to support its testing and deployment of new and existing applications.

“Platform independence is fundamental to our open-source strategy, and SpikeSource is an important part of helping us achieve that,” said J.P. Rangaswami, global CIO at Dresdner, based in Frankfurt, Germany. “The SpikeSource solution enables our engineering teams to focus on client-facing initiatives with the confidence that the banks environments have been tested and certified and are free of interoperability issues.”

Each of the seven stacks has been tested and validated and includes add-on features that have been designed for faster implementation and easy application management. These core stacks have been in development for more than a year and have been available in open public beta since December. SpikeSource will offer four levels of technical support.