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MS Releases Open Source Alternative To BigTable

Posted by kdawson on from the devil-puts-on-gloves dept.

gollito writes in with news that Microsoft has released an open source alternative to Google's BigTable file system, which is used on large distributed computer clusters. Matt Asay writes for CNet: "I also believe that Microsoft's fear-mongering around open source cost it years of productivity and quality gains that it could have been delivering to customers through open source. I hope that reign of ignorance is over."

3 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's not an alternative to BigTable by prockcore · · Score: 5, Informative

    Using Google's AppEngine, you can use BigTable.. so while you can't install it on your own servers, you can still write software that uses it.

  2. HBase isn't a Microsoft product by bryanduxbury · · Score: 5, Informative
    This article is really confused. Powerset, before it was acquired by Microsoft, started work on HBase, which is a BigTable-like storage system that runs on Hadoop. Both HBase and Hadoop are Apache projects that are out in the open basically in no relation to Microsoft.

    Microsoft has allowed two of the primary HBase developers, who work at Powerset, to continue their open-source work on HBase, which is definitely cool. But to say that Microsoft is releasing this is just flat out wrong.

    (Full disclosure: I am a non-Microsoft-employed HBase committer.)

  3. Re:Crap by bockelboy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, you're not even close.

    A company called Powerset developed the open-source alternative to BigTable called HBase. This was developed as an Apache Software Foundation project under the Apache license.

    Microsoft bought Powerset for a bucket of money because their search technology based of Hbase was pretty damned good. This was last year. This year, the folks behind powerset - as Microsoft employees - were given the go-ahead to continue committing to the ASF project and they continue to make it better. For what I can see, they aren't keeping anything juicy in-house.

    It's honest-to-goodness MS committing to an Apache project.