Embracing Open with Caution

Most open source vendors have been scripting documents and whitepapers to promote the open concept across enterprises. Initiatives from the IT majors such as BMC Software, Eucalyptus, HP, IBM, Intel, Red Hat and SUSE to create an open virtualization alliance, a consortium to foster the adoption of open virtualization technologies including Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), is a testimony to this effect.

The thought is around increasing the presence of open ware amongst the enterprises across the functionalities, and virtualization being the new phenomenon, of course not to forget the Cloud. However, IT Nexts objective has been to understand if open source, as an alternate platform is being considered as part of the IT strategy by the IT managers and IT heads as a natural phenomenon. Are the IT managers opting for open source as a natural progression in driving efficiency, cost reduction and ease of use?

The study indicates that the IT managers have been consciously embracing open source tools for varied reasons despite the inherent challenges. In some cases, besides catering to desktop and server platforms with open tools, there is increased migration of critical applications to open platform. However, there is an element of caution observed by the IT managers in migrating to open source in a full-fledged manner.

Open as IT Strategy
It is interesting to note that most IT managers and heads have started including open source procurement as part of the IT strategy for multiple reasons.

BLV Rao, VP and Global Head, IT, Infotech Ltd., finds organisations laying greater emphasis on promoting open source software in the current scenario. During the last one year percentage of open source has grown to almost 30 per cent from being around 6 per cent, says Rao.

He opines that open source is becoming part of IT and business strategy for development and testing groups.

Anuj Kumar, MD, India Subcontinent, Red Hat India endorses the fact that businesses are increasingly becoming confident about deploying open-source technology within the enterprise, instead of relegating it to the periphery or for experimental projects.

According to Kumar, customers are looking at two open software delivery models such as developmental model and consumption model.

The development models deliver the software at very low cost and have many innovative features embedded in it and this helps enterprises catch up quickly with market changes and trends.

The consumption or the subscription model is the most effective way to deploy, manage, and secure open source technology and helps the IT managers in supporting the infrastructure as the company grows. Kumar reiterates that the open source is appealing to IT managers as more and more applications are being certified and increased skilled professionals available.

Narayana Menon, Lead, Strategy & Marketing, Novell India/South Asia points that the open-source wave which started off as a movement and a trend spearheaded by the developer community has just not a reality but an integral component of the IT strategy among many enterprises and government entities.

Industry estimates indicate, open source in India has been clocking a steady 20 to 30 per cent growth year-on-year over the last 3 years and is expected to continue.

According to Menon, Gartners study indicated that by 2012, 80 percent of all commercial software would include elements of open source technology. Many open source technologies are mature, stable and well supported.

Menon observes that the platform provides significant opportunities for vendors and users to lower their total cost of ownership (TCO) and increase returns on investment and the relative cost advantages that open source provides ensures that IT managers adapt to this fast with performance as a criterion.

Justifying that the adoption of open source is on the rise amongst enterprises, Manish Sinha, Head, IT, Ondot Couriers argues, Why should a person pay for an OS which comes as Rs 9000 including tax and end up paying recurring cost per annum, besides audit reviews, which doesnt meet the need of application usage.

Sinha confirms that many freeware applications are available which are security tested even by hackers that comes so cheap and the big giant corporations are not able to develop those but they buy those and indirectly ask their customers to pay for that as embedded application or an upgrade.

He agrees that open source software procurement becomes part of the IT strategy as categories of operations get carried out at organizational level and for every level same resource cannot be allocated and hence alternate platforms are measured.

For this we need to have an operating system (Windows), its antivirus, back office tool (MS Office), General utilities such as zip or rar, browser, Adobe Reader, Mail Client for mail send and receive.

A thin client is a general term for computing devices recommended that rely on centralized or network-based resources to operate. A legacy example of thin clients is the dumb terminal, which displayed text driven applications served by mainframe computers and were generally deployed in railways, universities, call centers and commercial establishments.

Rather than going for a complete open source software procurement one should look at alternatives as well because it reduces manageability as everything is there at ROM or BIOS Flash that is an advantage and this is a full proof system from virus attacks and there is no need to install antivirus, says Sinha.

Vinay Mehta, CIO, Escorts Construction Equipment Limited finds the main driving factor for open source is the prohibitive cost of licensed software. Also with proprietary software one gets locked in with a vendor and is dependent on him for providing interfaces to other software, says Mehta.

However, Mehtas concern is that enterprises, which have invested heavily in licensed Office automation software, would like to protect that investment until they are forced to change due to obsolescence. The decision is much easier for new organizations to move to open, admits Mehta.

Dinesh S, Technology Head, SJM Technologies sounds bullish when he says that open source technology has matured and it is no longer a risk for any organization to adopt. The main driving force for the open source according to Dinesh would be low cost of ownership and faster implementation.

In fact open source is our first choice for any new development until there is a specific reason not to choose it. For example we have not yet adopted OpenOffice, because it has some alignment issue when we open Microsoft excel or Microsoft word in it, maintains Dinesh.

Pertisth Mankotia, Head IT, Sheela Foam Pvt Ltd., finds cost to be the obvious choice for any management besides the flexibility that open source software offers. More ever, no company likes the idea of being locked in to a single vendor for all the products. He further adds, Open source software procurement has become part of the IT strategy within Sheela Foam Ltd.
Senthi Kumar, Director, Software Solutions, Bloomedha Info Solutions Ltd., points, Procurement of OSS brings in a lot of responsibility on to the shoulders of the IT manager who is suggesting the OSS option against the proprietary solutions. The challenges that the IT manager would face is around platform reputation, evidence of on-going effort to develop the open source software that he or she is considering, available standards and interoperability , support both community and commercial, version available, documentation, skill set, project development model and arguably licensing clarity.

IT Managers take on Open Source
Open source vendors have witnessed larger adoption by the IT managers of various industry verticals such as BFSI, telecom, education and government sectors and across critical applications. There is increased deployment of subscription models in the open environment. Red Hats Anuj Kumar is pleasantly surprised over the open source deployments by the IT heads in the Business Intelligence, data warehousing and other mission critical operations and not just in databases.

We are witnessing adoption in all three categories of infrastructure, middleware and virtualisation and cloud, says Kumar.

The preferred functions such as OS, applications, email, database and all embedded on open source. Kumar has witnessed as per the industry report, about 470 open source cloud-computing projects and 3,800 open source mobile projects in 2010.

From an adoption standpoint, Sheelafoam has migrated its CRM from proprietary software to open source about a month back.

Earlier Red Hat Enterprise Linux on an Intel Xeon-based Dell PowerEdge server has enabled the firm to deploy its ERP on a single server, compared to the two previously required servers, doubling system performance with no downtime, maintains Mankotia.

The solution has also reduced the amount of time required for processing heavy reports by 25 per cent, while bringing down the cost of maintaining backups and server redundancy in the face of unforeseen failures, reiterates Mankotia.

Sheela Foams proprietary UNIX system forced it to depend on a proprietary vendor to test and implement improvements, which made the process expensive to maintain and less effective.

The company has deployed open source only in two functions, OS and the portal. However, Mankotia is open for installation in end-to-end applications like workflow in document management system on an open source platform.

SJM Technologies Dinesh has deployed most tools available including Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Orange HRM, FengOffice, Magenta, CodeIgniter etc. SJMs top management is keen to deploy open source tools around e-commerce, content management, collaboration, development frameworks and development platform such as LAMP and Ruby on Rails.

Ondots Sinha argues that the top management will open up doors for open source base on the proper business case furnished.

As a strategy, Sinha looks at selecting the vendor, which plays a pivotal role in the open source and get accurate SLA signed along with legal terms to seek consistent support and make a room for hiring resources from the vendor, besides discussing non-solicitation clause.

Sinha has looked at various options and the pain areas such as mail server, content management, frameworks for CMS etc. and deployed the tools appropriately.

We ensured that the everything was documented correctly and do the testing, fixing, backup restoration and DR in the first year itself, informs Sinha.

The key here is the right assessment and removing barriers in mind such as people have money to buy same functionality at a price, which is ten times higher than any open source module.

Sinha cautions, It is the duty of every IT Manager to pay attention to new technology and trends and also the utility or benefit the new product could give in the scenario.
Stating an example, Sinha says, Organizations working in distributed database or decentralized database mode could select MYSQL or MSSQL Express so that they get GB database size free with MS-SQL and later on that could also be converted in to other version as tools are available in the market for migration. MYSQL comes with everything bundled in it and at least implementation cost you could be high on savings.

Infrastructure Company Escorts runs its ERP on open source operating system. We opted to implement our Payroll package on Linux which has been running satisfactorily for the past 8 years, informs Escorts Mehta. Besides, Escorts has implemented open source email solution for one of its units and actively considering the migration of its entire email infrastructure on to an Open Source email solution, considering that open source OS implementation was almost one-third of the cost of the proprietary solution.

Mehta says that if an organization is moving to an open source for office automation applications it may need extensive retention of users, address inter-operability issues for the period of transition.

According to Bloomedhas Senthil, using open source databases like My-SQL and PostgreSQL for both non-critical and critical applications depending upon the nature of business and availability of the internal technical resources is a common phenomenon.

Java which is an open source programming language is being widely used for portal applications, says Senthil Kumar.

CSR Prabhu, Deputy Director General, reiterates that at this point of time about 30 to 40 per cent of the applications have migrated to open source at NIC, and as a government sector, he observes, about 30 per cent migration made towards open source.

NIC is making conscious effort to promote open source and imparting training to all the state executives on the software.

According to Infotechs Rao, web technologies, portals, intranet applications are most attractive on open source and encouraged by top management However, integration, upgrades are seen as big bottlenecks, if we dont have roadmap to enhance these platforms, applications in future, maintains Rao.

Non-critical databases from proprietary to open sources, which are very low in Capex and maintenance costs, are a preferred model. I see migration to open source happening in FTP, file storage, mails, web based mail systems, servers with ability to virtualise and have multi-function servers, proxy, file, Internet and web servers, back up and recovery with encryption systems and OS with associated applications integrated with in same physical servers, he observes.

Lured to Open
With IT managers making a strong business case for its top management to go open, there is an intense homework done to work out appropriate cost advantage with TCO factor gaining prominence. Infotechs Rao observes, Looking at IT needs for business areas, low cost for TCO and reasonable life cycle of applications are critical. In large enterprises, 12-20 per cent budget is allocated to open source, however mid-size and small scale organization use up to 35 per cent of the budget.

However, cost advantage cannot be ruled out while opting for open source. Rao explains, Let us assume having 20-30 servers for intranet, web applications costs close to Rs 1.4 crores for proprietary software over 5 years term with license and maintenance, leaving aside skills, training costs for IT staff. In case of open source, the cost of acquisition would range between Rs 30 lakhs to Rs 40 lakhs in the same five-year period. The bottom line is TCO which is attractive and support cost will be reasonable for this non-critical application in open source, admits Rao. According to him, ROI is generally seen within 24-30 months.

Ondots Sinha says that the only cost centered on open source is with regard to implementation, consulting and maintenance. Proprietary software support is costly in the sense that after sales service is additional, recurring cost is high, audit headache is eternal and all of these discourage the use of proprietary software, points Sinha.

Another factor luring the IT managers to migrate to open source is the 1:10 price ratio which means a branded software costs ten times more than an open source and when open source software is implemented be it a client server base computing, mail server then along with hardware the costing comes as 1:5 ratio.

SDPL Narayana, AGM, IT, Neuland Laboratories Ltd., doesnt find any acquisition cost around open source and even if there is one, it is minimal which would be towards installation and support.

The cost savings that open source providers fascinate Mankotia. Reduction in servers and associated maintenance costs has translated to cost savings of over Rs 40 lakhs, he says.

The firm now spends only Rs 2 lakhs to Rs 4 lakhs per three year period compared to the more than Rs 44 lakhs on its previous UNIX system.

Today, I have complete peace of mind because the Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Intel Xeon processor-based Dell PowerEdge server system is well-designed to scale to the rapidly growing demands of our organization, says Mankotia.

Escorts Mehta observes open source being cheaper with the license cost being one-third of the proprietary software. However, a word of caution that Mehta reiterates, Initial cost of implementing open source Office Automation software may turn out to be high due to the cost of re-training, change management, conversion or re-creation of some documents etc. If not handled properly the total cost may turn out to be of the same order as the proprietary software, he argues.

Opportunity amidst challenges
The IT managers do find challenges with regard to skill, ability to look at a holistic view by the top management, support system that is not certified.

At times, deployment time would be 20-30 per cent more in open source as against proprietary software platform. However, IT managers like Rao find open source a viable option considering the Cloud strategy being evolved in the enterprises. The areas like infrastructure, intranet applications are much preferred and service providers are gearing up to support these initiatives on open platform, informs Rao.

Given the cloud movement, Sinha says that it is 100 per cent viable proposition for IT managers to take risk to reap the benefits of open source given its uptime and manageability features.

Novells Menon opines that lack of awareness coupled with misconceptions regarding open source products remain a major barrier in open source product adoptions.

Menon recommends customers to move on to a support and services oriented IT buying approach while adopting to open source products as opposed to the traditional point product buying that they are used to.

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