DataSync Business News

DataSync is proud to announce that the latest build of DataSync Suite Community Edition is now available on SourceForge.org. DataSync has selected SourceForge as the primary means to manage community edition releases, and will be publishing upcoming release builds early and often. DataSync Suite Community Edition is currently in alpha stage, and will be released as a production software platform sometime in early 2009. However the release builds are already used by a variety of industries from around the globe. DataSync is focused on uniting best of breed business applications, and has already received positive support from industry.

Development velocity has increased significantly, and DataSync is on track to release the first “core services” component of DataSync Suite next month. The first supported applications in this integration feature will be SugarCRM and Zimbra. Both applications have show tremendous traction, and DataSync is excited to be a part of this growth.

As a part of DataSync’s overall strategy to integrate common business applications, our “release early, release often” development lifecycle will allow for early participation from the community. If you are a developer or have open source developers in your organization, we’d love your participation. Get in touch with our engineering team to find out more about how you can become a part of the DataSync open source integration movement.

In an effort to keep you updated on our progress on DataSync Suite, I decided to sit down with our engineers and ask a few probing questions. We’re excited about our progress with the package thus far, and have a strong commitment of keeping you up to date on what we’re up to. We have an extremely dynamic group of engineers who are making fast progress on our software package.

Q: What aspect of DataSync Suite are you working on right now?
A: Right now we’re working on the ability to archive emails to SugarCRM from Zimbra. This is just the first step in reproducing many of the features of the Outlook and Thunderbird plugins but for Zimbra.

Q: What technologies will you use use for data synchronization?
A: Data synchronization will be handled by what we’ve dubbed the “Integration Bus”. The “Integration Bus”, in short, will listen for changes to certain types of data in applications. When a change occurs in a particular application the Bus will distribute those changes to all other applications which rely on the same type of data.

Q: What are some of the upcoming features to expect?
A: The next major feature that we’ll be releasing is, of course, the email archiving. The communities surrounding Zimbra and SugarCRM have been looking for a way to keep their addressbook (contacts) and their calendars synchronized. After the email archiving our focus will be on just that, giving users a way to keep their calendars and contacts in sync between SugarCRM and Zimbra. Of course the DataSync Suite won’t be limited to just those two applications but will provide the means to allow other applications to be added to the mix easily.

Q: What applications will you be supporting in the future?
A: The next application we will be adding support for is Alfresco. Alfresco is an innovative open source content management system which provides digital management for documents, records, and website content. Following Alfresco will be Magento, an open source ecommerce solution.

Q: How do you handle feature requests?
A: Feature requests and bug reports can be submitted through our website feature request form.

Q: When are the next minor and major releases of the software?
A: The next release will be 0.5.0. This release will include the new email archiving functionality, an improved dashboard that takes up less screen real estate, and will introduce a new application server.

Q: When do you expect a 1.0 release?
A:  We’re looking to release version 1.0 around the end of the year.

If you have questions or comments, please post on our forums or contact us directly.

We’re finally ready to commit to a timeline for our first landmark feature for DataSync Suite: Zimbra email archiving to SugarCRM. You’ve been asking for it, we’re going to deliver. It’ll be open source and up for grabs in a couple months.

We’ve been focused on developing the single sign-on and account management portions of DataSync Suite. Now that we’ve made some progress there, we’re going to focus on a cool new feature over the next few weeks: developing a plugin that allows users to archive their email in Zimbra to SugarCRM.

We’ve already seen this done in desktop clients such as Thunderbird and Outlook, but no one has done it in the web interface of Zimbra. We’re doing this to remove the need for a desktop client to move information between SugarCRM and Zimbra.

In the future we’re also going to add contact, task, and calender syncing to the plugin. We’ll probably take a break and work on some other aspects of DataSync Suite (such as the integration bus) before we tackle that. However if there’s a group out in the community who would like to help us out, that would be much appreciated

DataSync is proud to publish our updated DataSync Suite architecture document in our wiki. This document is currently under heavy modification as we start publishing our strategy for future development of DataSync Suite. Right now we’re working hard on our understanding of Zope and how it ties into our application, and are finding that our “DataSync Core Services” application will be split into two parts:

1. Application Server - This will be heavily powered by Zope, and will be focused on communication and managing plugins with supported applications.
2. Integration Bus - This is the ground-level communication layer. We’re working to make this a scalable protocol that allows our application to scale to enterprise levels.

Overall the document is a skeleton model for how we’ll be building our application out. Right now we’re still looking to the community for input, so we’d like to hear your thoughts about the direction we’re taking. Also check out or roadmap for information on what we plan to build and when.

After a ton of research, we’ve decided to use Zope as the application framework that will drive the future of DataSync Suite. Zope is a widely accepted standard in the open source world that has an army of developers working on improving it. It’s also extremely flexible, actually one of the most flexible application frameworks out there in our opinion.

Our internal guys have already started working on moving some of the portal over to Zope, and will be working on layering in the Integration Bus. Our transition to Zope will probably be done over the next few months gradually. However our move to Zope is an important strategic decision that will help us make DataSync Suite more flexible and robust. One of the biggest features we’re looking forward to utilizing is Zope’s plug in features. We want to make it extremely simple to add applications to the suite, and Zope allows us to do that.

If you’re interested in more about ongoing development of our suite, feel free to contact us.

DataSync, Inc is launching a new open source application which will integrate many of the popular commercially used open source applications into one streamlined suite.

Currently there are many open source applications which are great options compared to their proprietary competitors, but since each open source project is maintained by largely a different set of developers with different goals in mind, these projects do not work well with one another causing un-necessary data re-entry, duplicated functionality, and un-necessary multiple-logons.

DataSync is hoping to change all of this by creating a open source integration application which will allow popular commercially-used open source products such as SugarCRM, Joomla, KnowledgeTree, Zimbra to work with one another. The initial version of the application which will be released in the next few weeks will feature a unified logon system which will allow users of each system to logon to all of them with one set of credentials.

Future versions which that will be developed by DataSync staff and the open source community will feature much greater integration between the five open source applications. A full roadmap of features pending in future versions is available on the community section of the DataSync website. The system will also be modular, so users will be able to install and leverage only the open source tools relevant to them.

DataSync’s business model will be very similar to that of what SugarCRM is currently doing by providing the software for free, but providing hosting and support for the application for a nominal fee. DataSync staff hopes to accelerate the development of this project by increased participation in the open source community and the designation of additional development hours on the project by DataSync staff.

DataSync is hoping to get this project off the ground and developed at a very accelerated rate. The initial release code will be provided to the OSS community in the next few weeks and a number of open source developers have already expressed interest in working on the project.

In the last few years we’ve seen a significant number of open source tools which are effective no-cost or low-cost replacements to traditional proprietary tools which can costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase and maintain. Open Office is now very competitive with Microsoft’s Office Suite, GIMP can do many of the things that Adobe Photoshop can do, and the OSS email solution, Zimbra, is making many wonder if Exchange will maintain its market dominance.
On the business side, we have many great open source solutions available, but very few of these tools integrate with each other in any meaningful way. When you purchase software all from the same company, usually their tools will play with each other very well, but when it comes to several different open source projects with different programming teams, you’ll save a lot of money, but there’s little chance of meaningful integration between each application.

That’s all about to change. DataSync is developing a new OSS unification suite which will make many of the open-source tools used by small and medium sized businesses work together as if they were all made by the same company. The project is called the “DataSync Productivity Suite.” The biggest benefit of the solution is that there’s no redundant data between the applications. Instead of having a set of duplicate contacts in SugarCRM and Zimbra, you’ll just have one set of contacts. You’ll only need to enter the data once, and it will show up where it needs to in all of the OSS applications that you leverage.

The DataSync Productivity Suite will have integrated open source applications to meet any and all business needs. It features the Joomla Content Management System for your company’s website, SugarCRM for sales force automation and customer relationship management, Zimbra for your business email needs, and KnowledgeTree for document management. The architecture around the productivity suite is extremely modular, so it’s very easy to add in additional open-source applications as time goes on. In the near future, DataSync will be adding an e-commerce solution to its arsenal of OSS tools available.

DataSync’s Productivity Suite also features a unified logon module which will enable you to sign-on to Joomla, SugarCRM, Zimbra, and KnowledgeTree with one username and password. With a single sign-on, you’ll be able to access all of your business productivity tools at once.

Click Here to Learn More About DataSync’s Productivity Suite

For a few years now, the Zimbra Collaboration Suite and SugarCRM haven’t talked. We all wish they would. It’s a frustrating problem, because both applications have very strong points, but very different uses. Zimbra excels at group collaboration and messaging, while Sugar is a full fledged CRM application. The problem is syncing email, calendars, and contacts has been non-existent.

That’s about to change. DataSync is sponsoring the “Zimgar” project, which aims to build an open source tool that plugs both applications into each other. No more manual or Outlook-based tri-directional syncing. Right now we’re still in the planning stages of this project, but hope to start development very soon.

If you have ideas or thoughts email me. I’d be more than happy to go over our strategy and get your input.

Onward!

-Mike

Wow, what a journey it’s been! This blog is finally our entrance into the open world of information. We have spent the past 3 years building a solid business, and now we will be sharing our adventures with you. We hope this site will provide you with a peek into what drives us to innovate and move forward, and also give you a place to give us your feedback and ideas. We are excited about the future and what it holds of open software.

DataSync has grown tremendously, and our breadth of knowledge and expertise has expanded as well. We have found that integrating open source applications is in great demand. Integrating SugarCRM and Zimbra is at the top of our list right now. We have the opportunity to see back office integration with purely open source applications for the first time. In the past this type of automation was reserved completely to the realm of expensive proprietary applications that were much too expensive for the average small business to afford.

It’s great to be able to help small businesses take advantage of great tools without massive upfront costs. When we started DataSync, we worked with these businesses every day. They needed better tools, but the available tools were either much too expensive or didn’t have the features they needed. Open software has bridged this gap.

This is the first of what will become a place that allows DataSync to share our experiences in the exciting new world of open integration. We anticipate some exciting projects in 2008, and expect to make great headway in building out truly unified open source solutions. We are also excited about offering cost effective SaaS (Software as a Service) offerings. For those of you who don’t have large IT staffing and budgets, this will be a great way to try and use software with no additional infrastructure.

Check back often as this blog grows and changes. Feedback is welcome, so feel free to let us know what you think!

-Mike