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Before being acquired by IBM, Cloudant was pretty committed to providing an implementation of a NoSQL database based on the open source Apache CouchDB project available only as a cloud service. Starting today, Cloudant is not only making an on-premise Cloudant Local version of its database available, it is also committing to being more aggressive about making contributions to the CouchDB project.

Dan DeMichele, vice president of product for Cloudant, says that as a unit of IBM, Cloudant is committed to eliminating any forks in the code for a CouchDB project that might ultimately hamper broader adoption of the NoSQL database.

In addition, DeMichele notes that Cloudant has also open-sourced the Cloudant Sync native mobile software libraries for Android and iOS. It also recently launched Cloudant Query, a declarative querying system that borrows syntax from MongoDB’s query system, and introduced Node.js for Cloudant, to make it simpler to build applications using JavaScript.

Over time, DeMichele says that IBM expects to see the emergence of hybrid CouchDB applications—especially when it comes to mobile computing scenarios that involve cloud services. In fact, DeMichele says the Cloudant implementation of CouchDB will be at the heart of many of the applications that IBM and Apple intend to deliver as part of a far-reaching alliance the two companies formed earlier this year. A key component of those applications will be the data-replication and synchronization capabilities that CouchDB provides to integrate mobile applications with CouchDB running in the cloud, says DeMichele.

It may take a while for this mobile computing application environment in the cloud to fully develop. But IT organizations are likely to find that NoSQL databases such as CouchDB are about to become a much more standard part of the enterprise cloud firmament than any of them currently realize.