Maestro includes a developer client, a project server, plus the back-end repository. It’s all based on the Apache open source components, with the packaged integration added by Mergere. In effect, it provides a lighter weight, more accessible solution to the managing of builds and test cycles portion of the application life cycle.
Maven is often compared to Ant, the open source Java build utility. The difference is that while Ant helps automate putting together Java builds, Maven adds an object layer that describes the build as part of a larger project. Maven is used for discovering a project’s dependencies and other meta information such as developers/owners, version, or site home page.
Specifically, Maven’s object layer is the Apache Project Object Model (POM), which stores metadata as XML, covering three main elements. They include a project management component that covers project organization, developer roster, source code location, and the URL of the bug tracking system; project dependencies; and builds, which encompasses a source code directory, a unit test-case directory, and the reports to generate in the build.
Like any open source offering, you can download the Maven tooling from Apache. The value add that Mergere provides includes support; documentation; a catalog to Apache Continuum; a friendlier user interface; plus options for bug tracking that include the choice of a plug-in for the JIRA open source bug tracker or a hosted bug tracking service option offered by Mergere itself.
Mergere, the company is actually part of Simula Labs, a group of open source tools providers founded by Winston Damarillo, who previously founded and sold Gluecode to IBM.
Simula’s other ventures LogicBlaze, which joins the list of open source Enterprise Service Busses (ESBs), plus another venture that is developing an open source alternatives to systems management frameworks like HP OpenView and Tivoli.
There actually is a synergy between the entities, claims Damarillo, who notes that Mergere and LogicBlaze share over half their customer bases.
