Thursday, December 20, 2012

New BitNami Redmine 2.2.0 released!

We are happy to announce that you can now download a new BitNami Redmine stack for the just-released Redmine 2.2.0 version. In case you are not familiar with the Redmine project, it is a flexible, web-based project management application.

This version of Redmine adds support for the latest Rails release: Rails 3.2.9. We also upgraded PHP to the latest stable version: 5.4.9.

New features in this version:
  • Private comments in issues.
  • Ability to allow subtasks in subprojects or other projects (can be turned on/off with a configurable scope).
  • Issue relations improvements:
    • Precedes/Follows relations take care of non working days when rescheduling issues (non working days can be configured in the application settings).
    • Precedes/Follows relations now also move following issues when rescheduling an issue earlier.
    • A new relation "Copied from/to" is automatically added when copying issues.
    • You can now filter issues against their relations.
    • Relations can be displayed on the issue list.
  • Issue list improvements:
    • The order of the group column can now be set.
    • An option lets you display the full issue descriptions on the issue list.
  • REST API additions: wiki pages, roles, priorities, user Impersonation.
Download the free native installer or virtual machine or deploy the new Redmine 2.2.0 version to the Amazon cloud in one click from the BitNami Redmine page. Enjoy!


Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Tell Us What You Think About the Future of the Cloud


In the spring of 2011, we teamed up with several open source companies to conduct a survey of trends in cloud computing and published the results under a Creative Commons license. The cloud space has been changing incredibly quickly over the past few years, so we're doing another survey to see just how much the industry and technologies have changed since 2011. Of course, we'll publish the results again so that everyone will have access to them. As an added bonus, all respondents who provide their contact info will have a chance to win one of 5 new iPads

We would love it if you would take just a few minutes to share your thoughts on the future of the cloud. You can take the survey at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BACD 

If you are curious about the results of the last survey, here is a summary of a few of the findings:
  • ·       61% of organizations are in the information gathering or planning stages or have an approved cloud computing strategy (but no implementation), 20% have cloud implementations and 20% have no cloud computing plans at this point
  • ·       70% of data center managers choose to deploy infrastructure on dedicated resources (e.g. dedicated servers and data center resources) while only 12% prefer to deploy their infrastructure in the public cloud.
  • ·       Hardware savings was cited as the most popular reason for using cloud-based storage and platform-as-a-service.
  • ·       12% of IT professionals indicated their preference was to run their infrastructure in public clouds
  • ·       The open source Linux operating system is the dominant guest operating system in the cloud with 83% of IT professionals planning to deploy Linux as a guest operating system, 66% will be deploying Windows OSes in the cloud
  • ·       Open source usage is pervasive among cloud computing users with 69% using open source software whenever possible while only 3% claim not to use open source software at all. All government users indicated some degree of open source usage.
  • ·       Among cloud computing users 59% will use compute clouds, 51% will use cloud storage and 47% will be using Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings
  • ·       The number one overall reason inhibiting cloud computing adoption is lack of cloud computing training (43%), followed by security concerns (36%).
Don't forget to take the survey to share your thoughts on the cloud and for a chance to win a latest-generation iPad! 

New BitNami JasperReports 5.0 released


We are happy to announce a new major release of BitNami JasperReports stack, version 5.0. JasperReports is a popular open source Java report and analysis tool.

BitNami JasperReports provides all-in-one free native installers, virtual machines and Amazon Cloud Images that simplify JasperReports' installation.

In addition to this, we also provide simplified deployment and management of JasperReports in the cloud with BitNami Cloud Hosting. Sign up for our free developer plan to check it out!

This version ships the following components:

 -  JasperReports 5.0
 -  Apache Tomcat 7.0.33
 -  JDK 1.7.0_09
 -  MySQL 5.5.28



JasperReports 5 welcome page

JasperReports 5 sample report



Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Tiki Wiki now part of BitNami


We have a new BitNami packaging contest winner: Welcome Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware to the BitNami family! Tiki Wiki is an open source wiki-based content management system and online office suite written primarily in PHP.

As with all BitNami-packaged applications, it will soon be available in a complete, ready-to-run package that you can download as a free native installer, virtual appliance and cloud template for the Amazon cloud. 

Would you like your favorite app to be part of BitNami? Be sure to propose and vote for it in our online contest! Every two weeks the content is restarted and one app is selected. Previous winners were the TestLink and PhpCompta applications. Your vote can make a difference!

Monday, December 17, 2012

New BitNami Alfresco 4.2.c released



We are happy to announce a new BitNami Alfresco Stack version: 4.2.c. BitNami Alfresco provides all-in-one free native installersvirtual machines and Amazon Cloud Images that simplify Alfresco installation. 

In addition to the stacks, we also simplify hosting and management of Alfresco in the cloud with our BitNami Cloud Hosting one-click deployment service. Sign up for our free developer plan to check it out.

This version contains the following components:
    • Alfresco 4.2.c
    • JDK 1.7.0_09
    • Apache Tomcat 7.0.33
    • LibreOffice 3.5.4
Enjoy! 

Alfresco administrator dashboard
Alfresco administrator dashboard

LibreOffice document viewer
LibreOffice document viewer






Friday, December 14, 2012

New Cloud Tools for Windows Azure

We are happy to announce a new addition to the BitNami family: BitNami Cloud Tools for Windows Azure. It is a native installer that bundles the command line tools that you need to access and manage Azure Cloud services together with all the third-party components required to make them work, such as Python and Node.js runtimes. The installers are available for Windows, Linux and OS X. Because they are self-contained and can be installed in just a few clicks, they are a convenient tool for getting started with the Windows Azure cloud.

Assuming you already have a Windows Azure account, the next step after installation is proper Windows Azure credentials setup.

1. Start the 'azure-shell.sh' on OS X or Linux or the 'Windows Azure cmd' on Windows. You should see a warning like the following:

WARNING: Your Azure account was not imported yet.
Please run the 'azure account download' command to import your account


2. Run the command below:

$ azure account download

info:    Executing command account download
info:    Launching browser to http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=254432
help:    Save the downloaded file, then execute the command
help:      account import <file>
info:    account download command OK

3.  Download your 'publishsettings' file from Windows Azure and import your accout.


$ azure account import publishsettings_file

info:    Executing command account import
info:    Found subscription: 3-Month Free Trial
info:    Setting service endpoint to: https://management.core.windows.net/
info:    Setting default subscription to: 3-Month Free Trial
info:    Use "azure account set" to change to a different one.
warn:    The 'publishsettings' file contains sensitive information.
warn:    Remember to delete it now that it has been imported.
info:    Account publish settings imported successfully
+ Enumerating locations
info:    account import command OK


That's all!  You can now start launching and starting Azure images on your own. Take a look at this quick guide to get started with WordPress, Drupal or Joomla! in Windows Azure with BitNami images.


Wednesday, December 12, 2012

New WordPress 3.5 available on BitNami

We are happy to announce that a new WordPress 3.5 "Elvin" version has been released on BitNami. This stack is available as a native installer for OS X, Windows and Linux, as a virtual machine and as an Amazon Cloud Image (AMI).

There are a significant number of new features in this WordPress version, including: 

  • New media handling for photos and galleries. 
New WordPress media manager
  • New default theme which has a very clean mobile-first responsive design
New WordPress twenty twelve theme
  • New Dashboard design to be retina-ready with beautiful high resolution graphics
  • New welcome screen
New WordPress dashboard
  • Now you can install WordPress Multisite in a sub-directory
  • New updated APIs: TinyMCE, jQuery, jQuery UI, jCrop and SimplePie
  • and many more!
In addition to the latest WordPress version, BitNami WordPress stack has been upgraded to use the latest PHP 5.4 and Apache 2.4 versions, which provide significant performance improvements. This is the list of the current main components that are bundled with the stack:
- WordPress 3.5
- PHP 5.4.9
- Apache 2.4.3
- MySQL 5.5.28
- phpMyAdmin 3.5.4
- Varnish 3.0.1

BitNami WordPress Multisite and BitNami Cloud Hosting

A WordPress Multisite Network is similar to a WordPress blog but it lets you create more blogs on demand. It is a collection of sites that share the same WordPress installation, plugins and themes. It is indicated for organizations, communities or user groups. In addition to the regular WordPress stack, BitNami provides a multisite version, configured out of the box to use different domains or subdomains for each blog.

You can add new sites from the Network Admin panel and WordPress will automatically manage the subdomains. This configuration works if you have previously configured your domain to accept wildcards (*.mydomain.com). For example: mysite1.mydomain.com, mysite2.mydomain.com, etc.

We have recently added support for wildcards in BitNami Cloud Hosting, a self-service application portal that allows you build and launch servers in the AWS cloud easily. Once you start your WordPress multisite you can start simply add new subdomains from the WordPress admin panel.

WordPress Multisite

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

PhpCompta is now available on BitNami

PhpCompta is the second winner of the BitNami bi-weekly packaging contest. PhpCompta is a web-based accounting application adapted to the Belgium and French legislations, were it is very popular. You can now download free, ready to run native installers for  Windows, OS X and Linux, virtual machines and Amazon EC2 images for PhpCompta.

Please see below for a brief Q&A with Dany De Bontridder, the founder of the PhpCompta project, where he shares some details about it.


1. What is the goal of the PhpCompta application? 

The project was started 10 years ago because I needed an accounting program running on Linux. I chose to develop it in PHP because it was easier to create the interface, and it turned out to be a good choice :-)  
The goal of PhpCompta is to have a reliable accounting application. Over time, new features were added thanks to the ideas of users. Today you can use to fill up the forms for the tax administration, to follow up with customers and much more.

2. What are some of the main features of PhpCompta? 
PhpCompta is really flexible, all the menu items are in a database, you can reorganize the menu and change completely the look and feel. Otherwise, the features are related to the accounting functionality, which follows the laws of Belgium and France, generation of documents (invoice, order, feenotes...).

3. Which projects or organizations are using PhpCompta currently? 
There are many users for phpCompta, ranging from non-profit to small business to union organizations, some of them with up to 100 simultaneous users. Geographically, we have users in Belgium, France, Switzerland... 
We also cooperate with other projects. For example, we have developed a plugin for Dolibarr (an open source ERP application). This plugin converts some actions (invoice...) and put them in PhpCompta. We did this because Dolibarr is missing a serious plugin for accounting. Each application is specialized in a different field.


4. What do you expect will be the main benefits of having BitNami packages available for PhpCompta? 
The biggest issue we have is with Windows users. It is difficult for them to install PhpCompta on Windows, so thanks to BitNami it will be easier for them to install and use it.


Would you like your favorite app to be part of BitNami? Be sure to suggest and vote for it in our contest!

Monday, December 3, 2012

Deploy Your Favorite BitNami Apps to VMware vFabric Application Director

We have partnered with VMware to bring your favorite BitNami apps to VMware vFabric Application Director! You can now find free application blueprints for SugarCRM, JasperReports Server, Drupal, Joomla!, Liferay and other applications in the new VMware Cloud Applications Management Marketplace, which was launched today.


vFabric Application Director is designed to simplify the multi-tier deployment of applications by providing a drag and drop interface that lets you visually build application deployments. In collaboration with VMware, we  have prepared both application components and deployment blueprints for many of the top BitNami applications. This means that you can point and click your way to deploying SugarCRM, Alfresco, Liferay and other apps in multi-tier configurations on VMware vCloud-powered private, public and hybrid clouds in a few mouse clicks. We are particularly excited about this announcement because it is the first time we are providing a way to deploy BitNami applications in a multi-tiered architecture. 

Currently available applications are listed below. Click on an icon for a how to for deploying the app on vFabric. 

Enjoy!