Together with two other engineers in Google’s Seattle office, McLuckie wanted to recreate Borg as an open source project. Borg is the sweeping software tool that drives everything from Google Search to Gmail to Google Maps, letting the company carefully parcel computing tasks across that global network. For years, it was one of the company’s best kept secrets. And McLuckie wanted to share its blueprint—or at least some of it—with the rest of the internet.The move comes in response to a larger change driven by the rise of cloud computing. Running proprietary software across so many machines is far more expensive, and molding it to fit particular needs is far more difficult. Whether they’re offering services like Google Compute Engine or building software for such services, today’s cloud companies must embrace open source.
Google Made Its Secret Blueprint Public To Boost Its Cloud
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The tool represents a notable shift inside Google as it strives to compete with the likes of Amazon and Microsoft in the world of cloud computing. Traditionally, Google closely guarded the fundamental technologies that drove its online empire—Borg being a prime example—and to a certain extent, it still does.
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