Open source computing vendor Hazelcast is launching its Hazelcast Enterprise in-memory data processing system, which it claims will liberate data center operators and IT service providers from vendor lock in by proprietary systems.

It timed the launch of Hazelcast Enterprise to compete for attention with Oracle’s In-Memory stack, which was unveiled on June 10 with a webinar by CEO Larry Ellison.

Oracle’s claim to be building engineered systems with vertical integration was questioned by Hazelcast CTO Greg Luck.

Oracle’s desire to be the ‘Apple of Enterprise computing’ has a hidden danger for any IT service provider that commits to this platform, he said.

Building a full stack from Weblogic to Oracle Coherence to 12c Database and Exadata hardware will increase the cost of ownership and, worse, completely tie customers to the vendor, warned the open source vendor.

“Customers are sick of it,” said Luck.

Hazelcast announced that it would provide a ‘radically different vision’ of in­memory computing driven by open source, commodity hardware, and open standards.

The data processing system is a free open source download under the Apache license.

Hazelcast claimed that any developer can install its system in minutes and build mission­critical, transactional and terascale in­memory applications.

Now Java developers can get hold of it via a 3.1MB open source Apache licensed library.

“Never before has this kind of in-memory data grid - that drives the world's financial trading systems - been so available,” said Hazelcast’s marketing VP Miko Matsumura.

“All of this power can be added to your applications in minutes with no dependencies other than Java itself.”

Future versions will have a variety of inventions including major advancements in Off-Heap memory, he said.