{"id":1544,"date":"2018-10-24T05:28:17","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T05:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/?p=1544"},"modified":"2018-10-25T01:58:50","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T01:58:50","slug":"pioneers-in-open-source-eren-niazi-part-i-the-start-of-a-movement-and-the-open-source-revolution-redefining-the-data-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/2018\/10\/24\/pioneers-in-open-source-eren-niazi-part-i-the-start-of-a-movement-and-the-open-source-revolution-redefining-the-data-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Pioneers in Open Source–Eren Niazi, Part I: the Start of a Movement and the Open-Source Revolution Redefining the Data Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

The name may not be a familiar one to everyone,
\nbut Eren Niazi can be credited with
\nlaying the foundation and paving the way to the many software-defined and
\ncloud-centric technologies in use today.<\/em><\/p>\n

When considering the modern data center, it’s difficult to imagine a time when
\nopen-source technologies were considered taboo or not production-grade, but
\nthat time actually existed. There was a time when the data center meant closed
\nand propriety technologies,
\ndeveloped and distributed by some of the biggest names in the industry\u2014the days when EMC, NetApp, Hewlett Packard (HP), Oracle or even Sun
\nMicrosystems owned your data center and the few applications upon which you
\nheavily relied.
\nIt also was a time when your choice was limited to one vendor, and you would invest
\nbig into that single vendor. If you were an HP shop, you bought HP. If you were
\nan EMC shop, you
\nbought EMC\u2014and so on. From the customer’s point of
\nview, needing to interact with only a single vendor for purchasing, management
\nand support was comforting.<\/p>\n

However, shifting focus back to the present, the landscape
\nis quite different. Instead, you’ll find an environment of mixed
\nofferings provided by an assortment of vendors, both large and small.
\nProprietary machines work side by side with off the shelf commodity devices
\nhosting software-defined software, most of which are built on top of
\nopen-source code. And half the applications are hosted in virtual machines
\nover a Hypervisor or just spun up in one or more containers.<\/p>\n

These changes didn’t happen overnight. It took visionaries like Eren Niazi
\nto identify the full potential of open-source software technologies. He saw
\nwhat others did not and, in turn, proved to an entire industry that open
\nsource was not merely production-ready, but he also used that same technology to
\nredefine the entire data center.<\/p>\n

His story is complicated, filled with ups and downs. Eren faced his
\nfair share of trials and tribulations that gave him everything, just to have it
\nall taken away. But, let’s begin at the beginning.<\/p>\n

Born in Sunnyvale, California, a little more than 40 years ago, Eren grew up down the
\nstreet from Steve Jobs, and on many occasions, he engaged the legendary
\nApple co-founder in inspiring conversations. The two shared many
\ncharacteristics. Neither ever finished college. Both are
\nentrepreneurs and inventors. Niazi and Jobs each were driven from their own
\ncompanies, only to return again. Around age 12, Eren became
\nfascinated with computers and learned how to develop code. However, his
\nadventures in open-source technologies didn’t truly start until the year
\n1998.<\/p>\n

Jim Truong took the young Niazi, a teenager with no college education, under
\nhis wing over at AMAX Engineering, a server and cluster computing company.
\nFounded in 1979, AMAX Engineering Corporation designs and engineers customized
\nplatforms for data centers. Today, it has expanded to provide solutions to
\nhost cloud, big data and high-performance parallel computing workloads.<\/p>\n

At age 19, Niazi was working diligently on architecting
\nsupercomputers for large account customers, which included the federal
\ngovernment and Linux Networx. By the end of his career with AMAX, Eren had
\nrisen to the level of OEM group manager.<\/p>\n

I was fortunate in that I was able to reach Jim for comment:<\/p>\n

I met Eren back in 1999 when I hired him at AMAX Engineering. Even then, at 19,
\nhe was extremely passionate about technology. He was self-taught and even
\nlearned to write code on his own. Eren was very motivated and wanted to learn
\neverything. The question was never about how, but how fast. Once he set his
\nsights on a goal, Eren would be 110% committed.<\/p>\n

Deep down, I always knew that he was going to be an entrepreneur. I just never
\nimagined that he would go on to accomplish so much in the open source space. At
\nthe time, everyone else was treating open source software as a pet project and
\nconfiguring machines to run simple tasks out of their homes. Eren took that
\nsame technology and proved it to be production grade. He used it to compete
\nwith Enterprise level solution providers in the data storage space but at a
\nlarge fraction of the cost.<\/p>\n

While Eren was at AMAX, he took notice of a trend in the technology of this
\nsector and observed the path in which it was heading. This would lead to a
\nunique vision for open source integration. The vision may not sound so unique
\ntoday, but at the time it went against the norms just enough to be considered
\nrevolutionary. In 2001, he created Open Source Storage, Inc., which focused on
\nleveraging commodity off-the-shelf hardware and pairing it with open source
\nsoftware while pushing into Enterprise space.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In 2001, Eren left AMAX and founded Open Source
\nStorage, Incorporated, or OSS. At the time, “open-source” anything was
\nstill considered somewhat controversial\u2014even more so in the professional
\nworkplace. But, that did not stop or dissuade the young Eren from pressing on.<\/p>\n

Some might even say that Eren could be credited with coining the terms open source
\n<fill in the blank><\/em>. The same sentiment was both expressed
\nand validated by Jim Truong of AMAX:
\n“Eren worked hard to pave the way for the open source storage movement (a term
\nhe coined), and he can probably be credited for getting us to where we are
\ntoday. Not many individuals can achieve what he did.”<\/p>\n

And there probably is some truth to this. Eren Niazi continues to hold many
\ndomain names, most of which were acquired 17 or more years ago. For example, a
\nwhois on opensourcesystems.com dates back to 1999, while a
\nwhois on a
\nopensourcestorage.com shows a creation year of 2001:<\/p>\n

$ whois opensourcesystems.com|grep Creation|head -n1
\nCreation Date: 1999-01-01T05:00:00Z
\n$ whois opensourcestorage.com|grep Creation|head -n1
\nCreation Date: 2001-12-06T03:19:35Z<\/p>\n

Niazi still holds the ownership of those same domains.<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/p>\n


\nFigure 1. A Few Domains Owned by
\nEren Niazi<\/em><\/p>\n

A trademark for Open Source Storage was filed on January 5, 2004 and registered
\non June 21, 2005.<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/p>\n

Figure 2. Serial Number: 78347754 and
\nRegistration Number: 2963234<\/em><\/p>\n

OSS hit the ground running. The company did the unthinkable by marrying both
\nopen-source software with commodity off-the-shelf hardware and, in turn, sold it
\nas a cheaper alternative to the big players and newcomers to the industry.<\/p>\n

Friendster, one of the original social-networking sites, was one of the early
\nOSS customers. The social network needed both hardware and a scalable platform.
\nOSS was able to fill that void and at a very competitive price. It wouldn’t
\nbe long before the Friendster employees left for the new kid on the block,
\nFacebook. Those former Friendster employees provided OSS with a wonderful
\nbusiness opportunity. Facebook was growing, and it was growing fast. The year
\nwas 2004. With its foot already in the door, OSS deployed its software
\nstack on top of 3500 systems and was with Facebook during its early growth
\nyears\u2014at least until 2007.<\/p>\n

Note: Friendster is currently a social gaming site, but that wasn’t always the
\ncase. Friendster was originally founded as a social networking site in 2002.
\nThe relaunch into the social gaming platform occurred much later in
\n2011.<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/p>\n


\nFigure 3. Niazi Standing in Front of
\nServer Cabinets in the Early Facebook Data Center<\/em><\/p>\n

Stories circulated stating how Mark Zuckerberg had invited Eren
\nNiazi to accompany him to the Nasdaq on the day he rang the opening bell to
\nmark Facebook’s IPO. While Niazi and Zuckerberg were very close, this story was
\nnothing more than just a simple rumor. Regardless of that fact, Eren did take
\nadvantage of the opportunity by purchasing pre-sale Facebook IPO stock via a
\nregistered stock broker.<\/p>\n

Open Source Storage had accomplished the unthinkable and commercialized open-source software. Open source was ready for enterprise. Taking notice, the
\nindustry shifted toward it. By the year 2007, the company’s list of
\ncustomers grew to include the following:<\/p>\n