Yahoo opens up its Traffic Server

Yahoo is taking another step into the cloud by confirming it is opening up its Traffic Server to an open source version.

The application server for builders of cloud services allows developers to take advantage of the platform that deals with session management, authentication, configuration management, load balancing and routing.

Traffic Server currently deals with more than 30 billion web objects a day across Yahoo and is capable of handling more than 30,000 requests per second per server. It currently supplies more than 400 terabytes of data per day.

Yahoo has donated the Traffic Server code to the Apache Software Foundation.

Shelton Shugar, senior vice president of Cloud Computing at Yahoo, said in a statement: "We see Traffic Server as an essential building block for cloud computing, and at Yahoo, it's integral to our edge services, on-line storage and cloud serving."

"The open-sourcing of Traffic Server is representative of our company-wide commitment to sharing technology innovation with the open source community, as well as our broader intention to continue to open source our cloud technologies as they mature."

This is the second time within five months that Yahoo has shown its dedication to the open source cloud, following its opening up of its Hadoop platform in June this year.

Shugar concluded: "By releasing an open source version of Traffic Server, we are sharing a core piece of technology with the open-source world, while also signalling our intention to build a community of developers to take it to the next level."