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Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/18/facebook_cassandra_microsoft/

Microsoft, Facebook, Google box clever on really big systems

The enemy of my enemy...

By Phil Manchester

Posted in Applications, 18th July 2008 17:02 GMT

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Facebook's decision to release under open source [1] a large-scale data management [2] project similar to - and inspired by - Google's BigTable [3] has received backing from an unusual quarter: Microsoft.

Data center futures architect and distinguished database developer James Hamilton [4], has complemented the pimply faced social network for releasing what he said [5] "looks like a well-engineered system."

Hamilton spent ten years at IBM working on DB2 before joining Microsoft in 1997 to work on SQL Server, and recently collaborated [6] with fellow database guru Michael Stonebraker on an examination of future database architectures.

Stonebraker put the cat among the pigeons by slagging off [7] Google's MapReduce [8] database tool earlier this year - he called it a step backwards. Stonebraker also noted there are limitations in BigTable and its open-source equivalent Hbase [9].

Conspiracy theorists might find it interesting that Stonebraker's co-author David de Witt joined [10] Microsoft in April to head up a new research effort into large databases. They should also remember Microsoft is an investor in Facebook.

Adding insult to injury, Facebook has put its project - called Cassandra - up on Google Code. Cassandra is not alone on Google code. Another BigTable clone called Hypertable [11] was set up on Google Code [12] earlier this year.

Like BigTable, Cassandra is designed to get round the limitations of traditional relational databases in large-scale, online applications.

Cassandra is the work of a Facebook team led by Jeff Hammerbacher [13], an ex-Harvard student who was recruited by Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg from troubled Wall Street bank Bear Stearns.

Hammerbacher is now reported [14] to have become the latest Faceboook employee to have served his notice. Can we expect this Facebook youf to show up in well-remunerated style at Redmond this Fall?

And, will all this prompt Google to put BigTable - or even MapReduce - into open source? Given it decided to release its Protocol Buffers [15] technology to open source this week - its not beyond the bounds of possibility.

There is a precedent: Facebook released Thrift, its clone of Protocol Buffers, to open source last year.

The games continue.®