Open Source Tools and Projects I Should Learn
Published on 6 Jul 2012 · Filed in Musing · 302 words (estimated 2 minutes to read)Yesterday on Twitter I asked this question:
If you had to pick the top 5 open source tools/projects to learn in order to stay sharp/relevant, what would they be?
A number of people expressed interest in the answers to that question, so I thought I post it here. My reason for asking isn’t just academic; I plan to use this feedback (as well as any feedback in the comments to this blog post) to further tweak my 2012 projects (see here and here).
Here are the answers I received back, followed by the number of people who suggested that particular tool or project:
Puppet (5 responses)
Python (3 responses)
Linux, general skills (1 response)
CloudStack (1 response)
OpenStack (4 responses)
Node.js (1 response)
Chef (1 response)
Riak (1 response)
Nginx (1 response)
Graphite (1 response)
Reimann (1 response)
KVM (4 responses)
Zabbix (1 response)
MongoDB/Cassandra (2 responses)
Hadoop (4 responses)
Metasploit (1 response)
Apache (1 response)
These responses are, by and large, consistent with the feedback that I received on my original 2012 projects post. Thus far I have resisted switching my focus from Xen to KVM, but it seems increasingly more evident that it would be most efficient to look at KVM and OpenStack together. (Those of you who suggested that at the beginning of the year, feel free to now say “I told you so.” It won’t offend me.) I can further combine that with Puppet to explore the use of Puppet in configuring OpenStack nodes and/or configuring VM instances running on OpenStack.
I’d love to continue to get more feedback, so please take the time to share your thoughts on the “top 5” open source tools/projects you’d recommend for a virtualization/data center guy (like me) to stay relevant and sharp in this fast-moving industry. Courteous comments are always welcome!