On Jul 13, 2012, at 2:23 PM, Aaron McCurry wrote: > Hello! > > I would like to propose Blur to be an Apache Incubator project. Blur > is a distributed search platform built for low latency searches over > large amounts of data. Blur is scalable and fault tolerant through > the use of Hadoop and ZooKeeper. Thrift is used as the RPC library > and the underlying search implementation uses Lucene and the Lucene > query syntax. > > The proposal can be found here: > http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/BlurProposal > > I have included the contexts of the proposal below.
Very cool! Regards, Dave > > Thanks! > Aaron > > = Blur Proposal = > > == Abstract == > Blur is a search platform capable of searching massive amounts of data > in a cloud computing environment. Blur leverages several existing > Apache projects, including Apache Lucene, Apache Hadoop, Apache > !ZooKeeper and Apache Thrift. Both bulk and near real time (NRT) > updates are possible with Blur. Bulk updates are accomplished using > Hadoop Map/Reduce and NRT are performed through direct Thrift calls. > > == Proposal == > Blur is an open source search platform capable of querying massive > amounts of data at incredible speeds. Rather than using the flat, > document-like data model used by most search solutions, Blur allows > you to build rich data models and search them in a semi-relational > manner similar to joins while querying a relational database. Using > Blur, you can get precise search results against terabytes of data at > Google-like speeds. Blur leverages multiple open source projects > including Hadoop, Lucene, Thrift and !ZooKeeper to create an > environment where structured data can be transformed into an index > that runs on a Hadoop cluster. Blur uses the power of Map/Reduce for > bulk indexing into Blur. Server failures are handled automatically by > using !ZooKeeper for cluster state and HDFS for index storage. > > == Background == > Blur was created by Aaron !McCurry in 2010. Blur was developed to > solve the challenges in dealing with searching huge quantities of data > that the traditional RDBMS solutions could not cope with while still > providing JOIN-like capabilities to query the data. Several other > open source projects have implemented aspects of this design including > elasticsearch, Katta and Apache Solr. > > == Rationale == > There is a need for a distributed search capability within the Hadoop > ecosystem. Currently, there are no other search solutions that > natively leverage HDFS and the failover features of Hadoop in the same > manner as the Blur project. The communities we expect to be most > interested in such a project are government, health care, and other > industries where scalability is a concern. We have made much progress > in developing this project over the past 2 years and believe both the > project and the interested communities would benefit from this work > being openly available and having open development. In future > versions of Blur the API will more closely follow the API’s provided > in Lucene so that systems that already use Lucene can more easily > scale with Blur. Blur can be viewed as a query execution engine that > Lucene based solutions can utilize when scale becomes an issue. > > == Initial Goals == > The initial goals of the project are: > * To migrate the Blur codebase, issue tracking and wiki from > github.com and integrate the project with the ASF infrastructure. > * Add new committers to the project and grow the community in "The Apache > Way". > > == Current Status == > > === Meritocracy === > Blur was initially developed by Aaron !McCurry in June 2010. Since > then Blur has continued to evolve with the support of a small > development team at Near Infinity. As a part of the Apache Software > Foundation, the Apache Blur team intends to strongly encourage the > community to help with and contribute to the project. Apache Blur > will actively seek potential committers and help them become familiar > with the codebase. > > === Community === > A small community has developed around Blur and several project teams > are currently using Blur for their big data search capability. The > source code is currently available on GitHub and there is a dedicated > website (blur.io) that provides an overview of the project. Blur has > been shared with several members of the Apache community and has been > presented at the Bay Area HUG (see > http://www.meetup.com/hadoop/events/20109471/). > > === Core Developers === > The current developers are employed by Near Infinity Corporation, but > we anticipate interest developing among other companies. > > === Alignment === > Blur is built on top of a number of Apache projects; Hadoop, Lucene, > !ZooKeeper, and Thrift. It builds with Maven. During the course of > Blur development, a couple of patches have been committed back to the > Lucene project, including LUCENE-2205 and LUCENE-2215. Due to the > strong relationship with the before mentioned Apache projects, the > incubator is a good match for Blur. > > == Known Risks == > > === Orphaned Products === > There is only a small risk of being orphaned. The customers that > currently use Blur are committed to improving the codebase of the > project due to its fulfilling needs not addressed by any other > software. In addition, one customer is providing financial support to > further develop Blur given its importance on mission-critical > projects. > > === Inexperience with Open Source === > The codebase has been treated internally as an open source project > since its beginning, and Near Infinity has extensive experience > developing and releasing open source projects > (http://www.nearinfinity.com/products/open_source). We do not > anticipate difficulty in operating under the Apache Way. > > === Homogeneous Developers === > Current developers are all employed by Near Infinity but we are > actively seeking contributors from different companies and would > welcome their participation. > > === Reliance on Salaried Developers === > Blur was originally created by Aaron !McCurry as a personal project > and he remains the primary contributor. Currently, Aaron’s employer > (Near Infinity) fully supports his continued participation with paid, > dedicated time to work on Blur. All other current developers are paid > by Near Infinity to work on Blur as well. > > === Relationships with Other Apache Products === > Blur dependencies: > > * Apache Hadoop > * Apache Lucene > * Apache !ZooKeeper > * Apache Thrift > * Apache log4j > > === Apache Brand === > Our interest in releasing this code as an Apache project is due to its > strong relationship with other Apache projects, i.e. Blur has > dependencies on Hadoop, Lucene, !ZooKeeper, and Thrift and its > uniqueness within the Hadoop ecosystem. > > == Documentation == > Current documentation can be found at http://blur.io and > https://github.com/nearinfinity/blur. > > == Initial Source == > Blur has been in development since summer 2010. The core codebase > consists of about ~29,000 (~10,000 if the generated RPC code is not > included) lines of code mainly Java. > > == Source and Intellectual Property Submission Plan == > Blur core code, examples, documentation, and training materials will > be submitted by Near Infinity Corporation. > > == External Dependencies == > * concurrentlinkedhashmap - Apache 2.0 License - > http://code.google.com/p/concurrentlinkedhashmap/ > > == Cryptography == > none > > == Required Resources == > * Mailing Lists > * blur-private > * blur-dev > * blur-commits > * blur-user > * Subversion Directory > * https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/blur.git > * Issue Tracking > * JIRA > * Continuous Integration > * Jenkins > * Web > * http://incubator.apache.org/blur/wiki at http://wiki.apache.org > or http://cwiki.apache.org > > == Initial Committers == > * Aaron !McCurry (aaron.mccurry at nearinfinity dot com) > * Scott Leberknight (scott.leberknight at nearinfinity dot com) > * Ryan Gimmy (ryan.gimmy at nearinfinity dot com) > * Tim Williams (twilliams at apache dot org) > * Patrick Hunt (phunt at apache dot org) > * Doug Cutting (cutting at apache dot org) > > == Affiliations == > * Aaron !McCurry, Near Infinity > * Scott Leberknight, Near Infinity > * Ryan Gimmy, Near Infinity > * Patrick Hunt, Cloudera > * Doug Cutting, Cloudera > > == Sponsors == > * Champion: Patrick Hunt > > == Nominated Mentors == > * Tim Williams (twilliams at apache dot org) > * Doug Cutting (cutting at apache dot org) > * Patrick Hunt (phunt at apache dot org) > > == Sponsoring Entity == > * Apache Incubator > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
