IBM to Offer Open Source Project as a Cloud Service; Seth Shostak Comments

IBM will offer its open source technology as a service on its Bluemix cloud platform and embed the tool into its commerce and analytics offerings.

The company said Monday the move to offer Apache Spark open source project, which is designed to quickly process large-scale data, as a cloud service aims to help application developers immediately load and model data.

IBM has teamed up with NASA and the SETI Institute to use Spark’s machine learning functions in the analysis of deep space-derived radio signals.

“With Spark as a service on Bluemix, we’ll be able to work with IBM to develop promising new ways to analyze signal data as we hunt for evidence of intelligence elsewhere in the cosmos,” said Dr. Seth Shostak, senior astronomer and director of the Center for SETI Research.

IBM will also direct at least 3,500 developers and researchers to work on programs related to Spark, train more than 1 million data engineers and scientists about the platform and launch a technology facility in San Francisco as part of its commitment to the open source project.