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Orbitz Open Sources Tools To Manage Large Distributed Applications

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the playing-nice dept.

mjasay writes "CNET is reporting that on Monday Orbitz will announce the creation and release of two open-source projects, Extremely Reusable Monitoring API (ERMA) and Graphite, both 'part of a Complex Event Processing system designed to monitor large distributed applications, analyze the data that is gathered and display that data in real-time graphs.' Though there were hints of these projects at JavaOne earlier this year, Monday's announcement adds significant context to the work Orbitz has done to create two highly compelling open-source projects, whose applicability extends far beyond the travel industry. In particular, it highlights Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst's vision that enterprise IT needs to open up and collaborate. However, as Orbitz's development team notes, it's easier said than done to participate in open source, especially when creating projects rather than simply contributing to existing projects."

35 comments

  1. are you guys still on jdk 1.4? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So when Orbitz is going to accept progress and move away from soon to be sunseted jdk 1.4

    1. Re:are you guys still on jdk 1.4? by afidel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Lots of stuff runs on jdk 1.4.7 since it was the stable and supported version for so long, especially when 1.5 was in flux. I have a ton of tools that ask for it and I know most of the Oracle stuff in 10g r2 uses it (and fails to include the TZ updates so every time we install a new client we have to TZ patch it). Basically Enterprise IT is often much slower moving than other areas of IT because we get bit by bleeding edge often enough to know it's often just not worth it if there's an alternative that has the same functionality and is more stable wrt change.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    2. Re:are you guys still on jdk 1.4? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      There is no excuse for using 1.4.2 .. don't give me the stability excuse 1.5 is far better and 1.6 is way better stability and performance..

    3. Re:are you guys still on jdk 1.4? by dlb1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      not only that, 1.4.2 is going out of maintenance very soon: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/

    4. Re:are you guys still on jdk 1.4? by mokeefe · · Score: 4, Informative

      Orbitz is actively moving to 1.6 and our entire new technology platform is already on 1.5. However with some older apps dating back to 2000 sharing this same monitoring API, it takes time.

      Meanwhile, ERMA does have a separate build within the same codebase for 1.5 code including support for Annotations, etc, and we make use of backport-util-concurrent.

    5. Re:are you guys still on jdk 1.4? by mokeefe · · Score: 2, Informative

      P.S. We also have some cool MonitorProcessors that use the java.lang.management package which is new to 1.5.

    6. Re:are you guys still on jdk 1.4? by Noke · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have an excuse. We use DB2 Connect (v8) on an HPUX platform (11i). Guess what? DB2 Connect v8 isn't certified to work with anything above JDK 1.4.x. In order to have support for JDK 1.5, you need to upgrade to DB2 Connect v9. But DB2 Connect v9 isn't certified to work on HPUX 11i. You need up upgrade the OS.

      With a critical enterprise application, going down that upgrade path is costly and risky.

      So there are actually lots of excuses especially when you are in a large enterprise environment.

    7. Re:are you guys still on jdk 1.4? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So when Orbitz is going to accept progress and move away from soon to be sunseted jdk 1.4

      When you get off your backside and port it? It's open source, or would you like everything offered to you for free also to be gift-wrapped and come with a pony?

    8. Re:are you guys still on jdk 1.4? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Open Source is really as much about code readability as anything else. If you expect to reap contributions from the community at large, there must be a culture of developers reading code they might not strictly have to read to deliver specific features/fixes.

      Corporate software development usually tries to be efficient by limiting the amount of code anyone must read by compartmentalizing everyone into highly modular "developer" cubicle culture. Nobody reads anything that isn't strictly necessary to complete their specific deliverable project tasks.

      The open source way is to make the code easy to read so that the incremental effort/cost of a programmer chasing a reference in source code is low. Then lots of code gets read, and lots of people understand more deeply how things work. This creates lots of opportunities for those people contribute sublime code improvements.

      The correct answers to the somewhat snide crack about accepting progress is "what are you talking about? ERMA works great on 1.4-1.6." Unenlightened but technically correct might be "What are you trying to do, and what goes wrong, and after I've finished debugging your problem, would you like me to come over and wash your car and do your laundry too? RTFM! That's why the source is there!" When you say "it takes time" what that really means is "we'll fix that eventually, so don't worry about that or try to do anything about it yourself." It also means "you might as well try something else until we get around to it."

      If you're coming up short of empowering the complainer to scratch their own itch, then you're not really doing community owned open source. Imagine doing XP with random anonymous strangers: "Fix it yourself. Ready, set, go!"

  2. Commercial competition? by Nursie · · Score: 1

    So does this stuff compete with things like HP OpenView and IBM Tivoli software?

    1. Re:Commercial competition? by Miniluv · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No it does not. ERMA could be used to instrument your software so that it can more effectively be monitored with either solution. Graphite is just a graphing tool for large volumes of numeric data which occurs in a time series.

    2. Re:Commercial competition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Phew!

      Also something I should look into... /Is tivoli developer

  3. Thanks a lot! by KasperMeerts · · Score: 1

    Seriously, thank you.I'm sure this will help FOSS in the enterprises and industries.

    (Nobody ever does that here)

    --
    As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.
    1. Re:Thanks a lot! by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Absolutely right. Never used Orbitz before but I'll give them a try next time I travel.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    2. Re:Thanks a lot! by Braino420 · · Score: 1

      Might want to rethink that.

      --
      They call me the wookie man, I guess that's what I am
    3. Re:Thanks a lot! by strabes · · Score: 1

      Every time I heard the word "Orbitz" I think of that maddox article. It's so funny.

      --
      Its = possessive. It's = "it is"
  4. Is this talking about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Err, is this talking about orbitz.com?

  5. i thought java didn't matter by trybywrench · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A large company using Java for enterprise applications? wow and here Taco had me thinking Java Only Matters to Sell Books(tm).

    Thanks Orbitz for open sourcing your apps. The ERMA things looks really cool.

    --
    I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
  6. enterprise IT needs to open up and collaborate by MRe_nl · · Score: 1

    or even "enterprise needs to open up and collaborate".
    I think only certain results can be expected in a business environment based
    so heavily on Profit - Bottom Line - Trust nobody - Business is War type axioms.
    Clearly the whole open vs closed-source software is just a small part of a bigger
    question, the balance between competition and cooperation in corporations,
    or indeed society. May you live in interesting times indeed.

    --
    "Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
    1. Re:enterprise IT needs to open up and collaborate by CBravo · · Score: 1

      To phrase it differently: In society, how much does a group (e.g. corporation) share?

      I guess you can share as long as it does not breed competition in your market or change the market as a whole in unfavorable ways.

      --
      nosig today
  7. Confused about Graphite at first by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

    At first I thought the talks is about this Graphite, but it made no sense. They should refrain from giving such nice names to Java libraries! People will only get confused. :-)

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
    1. Re:Confused about Graphite at first by Sarlok · · Score: 1

      Yeah, me too. AFAIK, the font-rendering graphite developed by SIL has been around for longer than this one. Google "graphite" and see the sil project as #3 (1st two talk about the mineral)

    2. Re:Confused about Graphite at first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Graphite was the internal name used for the project. It just wasn't renamed.

  8. Didnt that drink die? by citylivin · · Score: 1

    I mean no one likes drinking little bits of goo with their sugared water. It was doomed to fail id say!

    --
    As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
  9. Open Source What?? by Dalroth · · Score: 1

    Is it too much to ask for even a basic explanation of what these products are and what they do?

    1. Re:Open Source What?? by baboonlogic · · Score: 2, Informative

      This is much more informative than the summary...

      ERMA

      From there:

      Orbitz Worldwide, a leading global online travel company, has open sourced two monitoring tools Extremely Reusable Monitoring API (ERMA) and Graphite, a persistence and visualization component. ERMA is a home grown Java API and library that has been used in several web applications at Orbitz to capture monitoring statistics in the applications at run-time. It is the source of streams of events that are processed in order to raise alerts when a service is down or running slower than defined response time thresholds.

      Another useful link

  10. Typical FOSS business model by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1. failed business announces it's going open source
    2. ???
    3. ???
    4. Profit!

    Hey, it worked for Firefox- look at all the money they are raking in!

  11. Awesome interface! by baboonlogic · · Score: 1

    I have spent the past month developing a similar monitoring backend to the enterprise cluster I am building here (though not in java). This looks very interesting and I will definitely give this a shot.

    Look at the screenshots! My architecture was somewhat similar but my interface feels like dark age compared to this!

  12. Datacenter Neighbors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    If it weren't such a huge violation of security-through-obscurity, perhaps someone might point out that Orbitz and Slashdot are neighbors in some hypothetical datacenter which may be located somewhere in the central USA. I've certainly never been there to witness such juxtaposition of Internet real estate; If I had I definitely wouldn't point it out, particularly on such a public forum as this.

    This message will self destruct in 10 seconds.

  13. ITA Software - the search engine behind orbitz by Palal · · Score: 1

    FYI: Orbitz doesn't use their own search engine. They use ITA Software, whose "test" interface is very handy for finding fares

    --
    -Palal
    1. Re:ITA Software - the search engine behind orbitz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FYI:
      Orbitz doesn't use their own search engine. They use ITA Software, whose "test" interface is very handy for finding fares

      Does ITA provide hotel, car or packaging products ??

  14. Orbitz! by Slur · · Score: 1

    Really, I fail to see what any of this has to do with gum.

    --
    -- thinkyhead software and media