The open source data center that heals itself

As part of the roll-out we have a commercial affiliate, Cfengine.com, with fireworks on the home page and binaries you can buy. An enterprise edition is promised real soon now.

What sets Cfengine apart is a language in which you can build-in the procedures you would take if things went wrong. The new version adds support for Topic Maps, an XML schema making strategic intentions behind decisions easier to follow.

Cfengine has been around since 1993, and the company said it is taking an incremental approach to upgrades, so as to minimize system disruptions, which are its business.

If the business runs as smoothly as the software this gives open source a new card to play in the battle to manage large data centers and clouds. If Linux wins the top end of the market, it's hard to see where Microsoft goes from there.