LexisNexis to challenge Hadoop supercomputer

IT solutions provider LexisNexis is planning to release its internally developed supercomputing platform as open source, providing developers with an alternative to the Hadoop framework for large-scale data processing, reports PC World.

LexisNexis has been developing the technology, dubbed HPCC Systems, for the past 10 years, according to the company, which provides a variety of information services to legal firms, libraries, corporations and government entities.

“We've been doing this quietly for years for our customers with great success. We are now excited to present it to the community to spur greater adoption,” says James Peck, CEO of LexisNexis' risk solutions division.

The Register says LexisNexis will release a virtual machine for testing, full binaries and the source code in the next few weeks.

The company has not yet revealed which open source licence it will use, but it will not be a copy-left licence, the company says, permitting for derivations and improvements bearing the HPCC name.

LexisNexis is in talks with Amazon to make HPCC available on the e-tailer's cloud while also planning to offer its own cloud to customers.

“In the next few years, open source solutions will be leveraged in increasingly mission-critical deployments. In addition, said.

Mark Driver, Gartner VP and research director, states in Business Wire that in the next few years, open source will be used in more mission-critical deployments.

“We will start to see a trend where more and more companies open source some of their proprietary intellectual property in efforts to accelerate development of their technology platforms and applications.

“For companies that own their IP and move to an open source model, properly managed open-source assets drive positive return on investment through flexibility, innovation and cost optimisation. These three work in confluence to increase value, strengthen competitive opportunities and reduce costs.”