The transition from the PC Era to the Cloud Era is expected to fuel a massive build-out in cloud infrastructure, creating a new market projected to exceed $11 billion by the end of 2014, according to industry analysts. Technology research firm In-Stat predicts that enterprise spending on public cloud computing services will expand 139 percent from 2010 to 2011 alone.
The rise of cloud computing can be attributed in large measure to virtualization. The ability to virtualize multiple servers on a single piece of hardware makes it possible to build out public and private cloud infrastructures capable of supporting a wide range of IT services. Virtualization also helps enable a key benefit of cloud computing — the ability to scale the infrastructure up or down on demand.
But some experts say this is just the first step toward cloud computing. Ultimately, cloud computing environments will not consist of a traditional enterprise server virtualization platform with cloud management layered on top. They will run on platforms designed from the ground up to deliver cloud services in the simplest and most cost-effective way. The world’s largest and most successful public clouds are already built this way.
A key element of this architecture is open-source software (OSS). OSS is licensed in such a way that enables users to copy it, redistribute it and make improvements to it, fostering a “community” paradigm that encourages programmers to voluntarily contribute to the software. The goal is to reduce costs, speed the cycle of new releases and enhancements, and encourage innovation. Because open-source licensing schemes generally prohibit the addition of any proprietary components, it also helps free organizations from the vendor lock-in and inflexibility associated with proprietary solutions. These features make OSS ideally suited to the cloud environment.
Back in 2005, Gartner listed OSS as one of the year’s Hottest IT Topics and Trends. The esteemed research firm predicted that 95 percent of Global 2000 organizations would have formal OSS acquisition and management strategies by 2008, and that OSS would directly compete with closed-source products in every software infrastructure market. By 2010, the research firm said, IT organizations in Global 2000 companies would consider OSS in 80 percent of their infrastructure-focused software investments and 25 percent of their business software investments.
Things didn’t quite turn out that way. A recent Gartner survey found that while more than half of organizations surveyed have adopted OSS as part of their IT strategy, just 22 percent of respondents were adopting OSS consistently in all departments. A much-higher number (46 percent) used OSS in specific departments and projects, and 21 percent revealed that they were in the process of evaluating the advantages of OSS usage. Only one-third of responding organizations had a formal OSS policy in place.
At the same time, however, more organizations are looking to OSS for competitive advantage rather than as a source for no-cost software. Nearly one-third of respondents cited benefits of flexibility, increased innovation, shorter development times and faster procurement processes as reasons for adopting OSS solutions.
“Gaining a competitive advantage has emerged as a significant reason for adopting an OSS solution, suggesting that users are beginning to look at OSS differently — if they can customize the code to make it unique to their company, they have created a competitive advantage,” said Laurie Wurster, research director at Gartner. “Although a search for reducing costs by adopting OSS continues to be a major driver, with this survey we see more respondents looking at OSS as having much-greater value than simply getting something for free.”
The key corporate-wide, Gartner-defined initiatives supported by the use of OSS are: data management and integration; and application development, integration, architecture, governance and/or overhaul. Other key initiatives supported by OSS are business process improvement or reengineering; security, risk and/or compliance; data center modernization and consolidation; and virtualization.
Many businesses are already using open-source software — often without even realizing it. The Linux operating system, Apache Web server and mySQL database are some of the best-known examples of open-source software. Of course, there is open-source software for virtually everything, from email to word processing to accounting and more.
Most of these solutions are available for free download, although vendors often charge for support and other add-ons. However, the benefits of open-source software extend beyond free licenses. Most OSS is built upon industry standards and benefits from the contributions of the development community. Bugs and security flaws tend to be fixed rapidly, and access to the source code also enables organizations to customize the code to meet specific needs.
OSS poses some unique legal challenges, most of which come into play when an organization modifies the code. Because any code added to an open-source application must be made open source and included in any subsequent distributions, there is the risk of an organization exposing its intellectual property if the code is to be distributed. Forking is another concern with open-source software. An application is said to fork when the development community becomes divided as to the direction development should take. Development may stop, the technical direction of the software may change dramatically or multiple versions may evolve.
Despite these risks, OSS is clearly the wave of the future and organizations should start looking for ways to weave OSS into their IT infrastructures. The amount of OSS in enterprise software portfolios has increased with each Gartner OSS survey taken in the past five years, from less than 10 percent five years ago to more than 30 percent expected within the next 18 months. With cloud computing providing another boost, there’s little doubt that OSS is on the rise.
