In the same theme of mixed commercial and free software – LAMP and Java developers and administrators may find a welcome convenience in leanring about blueglue from Open Logic.
blueglue is sold as a commercial solution to deal with the challenge of managing the open source software stack – the combination of several applications making what we do possible on either Linux or Windows servers. For example, maintaining the installation, configuration and updating of an environment running Apache, MySQL, PHP and CVS can be done from a central interface.
The product supports more than 100 well known open source applications including Apache, Perl, PostgreSQL, Tomcat, JBoss and many more.
What I found interesting was the inclusion of more than a dozen sample projects that leverage those open source apps with example configurations and code to jump start exploration and testing.
This can be valuable for the beginner or perhaps more importantly for developers or clients seriously exploring open source that have not yet made the leap.
Open Logic is sold on an annual subscription basis for around $400 US – however – thinking of the dollars and time saved through an automated installation, configuration, testing and patching interface, that cost is quite minimal.
Definitely worth a look – and with the cross platform friendliness for those open source apps that support both Linux and Windows – very useful for mixed environments.
Blane Warrene
