AWS Launches New Open Distro for Elasticsearch

Amazon Web Services Inc. is optimizing its open – source identification information with the release of its new Open Distro for Elasticsearch software today.

Elasticsearch is a business-oriented search engine for structured and unstructured data based on the Apache Lucene open source project. It is most often used for log analysis, full-text search, security intelligence, business analysis, and use cases of operational intelligence. AWS offers its own software version with AWS Elasticsearch Service, a managed offering that facilitates the deployment, exploitation, and scaling of Elasticsearch clusters on its cloud infrastructure.

The company said the new version is a "100% open source Elasticsearch Value Added Distribution", available under Apache 2.0 license and supported by Amazon. Open Distro for Elasticsearch is based on the open source code of the classic Elasticsearch project and also incorporates the Kibana code, a data visualization plugin for Elasticsearch.

In a blog post, Adrian Cockcroft, vice president of cloud architecture strategy at AWS, insisted that the version of Open Distro was not a fork in the industry. Elasticsearch, but rather a separate and "feature-rich" version of the platform. -source.

Cockroft believes that Open Distro is needed because Elasticsearch Global BV, Elasticsearch's leading developer, nicknamed "Elastic," "blurs the tracks" by adding a significant amount of proprietary software to its code base .

Adding proprietary code to create new features is not a problem in itself. Most open source software commercial lenders do the same, and then generally add support services to make money with the software. But in the case of Elasticsearch, there is now a "lack of clarity" as to what free software users get, according to Cockcroft.

"For example, neither the release notes nor the documentation specify what is open-source and what is proprietary," said Cockroft. "Enterprise developers may inadvertently apply a fix or enhancement to the proprietary source code. This is difficult to follow and govern and could lead to a license violation and immediate termination of rights. "

AWS also fears that innovation is impacting more on improving the open source version of Elasticsearch, but on improving the proprietary implementation.

"We discussed our concerns with Elastic, the Elasticsearch maintenance managers, including proposing to devote significant resources to developing an unmixed, community-driven Elasticsearch version," he said. Cockroft. "They made it clear that they had the intention of continuing their momentum."

As a result, Amazon has decided to go it alone with its Open Distro, which incorporates new open source features not visible in the standard version, including data encryption in transit, user authentication and control. granular role-based access.

Cockroft said the new features are designed to fill a number of gaps in the open source version of Elasticsearch, where features such as security, event monitoring, and SQL support are only available to those who adopt and pay the proprietary Elastic code.

"Many of these features are the ones we've been working on for inclusion in Amazon Elasticsearch Service," said Cockroft. "Open Distro for Elasticsearch enables users to run the same feature-rich distribution wherever they want, such as on-premise, on laptops, or in the cloud."

Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller explained to SiliconANGLE that it made sense for Amazon to rank behind Elasticsearch in this case because the software is a key part of its offerings. cloud infrastructure. "It shows that AWS can be a good open source citizen who contributes to the community," he said.

Image: AWS