GridGain announced the fourth and latest release of its Java-based open source analytics middleware, which features several improvements and expanded support.

Version 4 introduces a new tool appropriately named the Monitoring and Management Console, aimed to help admins manage and shape command-line- and GUI-based grid topologies. Another new addition is the GridGain CloudBoot, a deployment and provisioning interface for public cloud environments that supports all the major platforms.

On top of all that, there’s also the drastically expanded support for programming languages and OS’s. This is something GridGain was wise to address, considering that a lot of the data its clients are handling originates from a broad spectrum of end points and environments.

Here’s the details from this morning’s release:

– Big Data Anywhere capabilities with native lightweight clients for Java, .NET, Python, PHP and C++ as well as native clients for the two largest mobility platforms, iOS and Android.

– Native language support for Java, Scala and Groovy programming languages.

Last but not least is security, another element that is extremely important for companies hosting their data remotely. GridGain v4.0 comes with password protection, and support for secure session access and the java authentication and authorization service (JAAS.)

GridGain is based on a model that’s rather common in the big data space: its open-source software is available in the form of a freely downloadable community addition, and a commercial version with extra perks for enterprise clients. Another example of an analytics vendor that leverages the same concept is Greenplum, which released the latest version of its data base solution earlier this month. It was bought out by storage giant and aspiring big data behemoth EMC last year, and a portion of its growth can be credited to its involvement with the developer community.