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Enterprise FOSS Adoption Beyond Linux Servers?
An anonymous reader writes "I am working with a couple of large companies that are purchasing web and collaboration software stacks from Microsoft, IBM and others. These are for thousands of end users and are (supposedly) ready for multiple data center deployment and other big-corp requirements. I have suggested some open source alternatives such as Liferay and Drupal, and the technical people are interested but management types are not. They have given a few reasons, such as concerns over supportability and enterprise-readiness, but my feeling is that they are being won over by FUD from large vendors and the fact that most corps do not have significant deployments of FOSS technologies beyond Linux yet. All this seems to be in line with a survey on Web-app servers by OpenLogic. So my questions are: How have you persuaded larger enterprises to adopt server-side OSS, beyond server-room Linux and a couple of demo JBoss boxes under someone's desk? And which products are truly ready for enterprise-scale deployment?"
Could someone re-write this story without the buzzword "enterprise" substituting for the actual requirements?
Until then, I will have to mod this down.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I've plugged this before... but Sphinx is a great full text search engine. I've helped with a couple of production deployments and folks have been happy with it. The Ruby on Rails integration is good and the API is easy to use... for a simple demo including excerpt highlighting, try some searches on my military reading list site.
The Army reading list
I work for IBM, but don't speak for them in an official capacity. Open source is customer driven and not vendor driven. There is little incentive for anyone outside your company to push open source software because it reduces their profit. Ask your vendors to come up with solutions that use open alternatives, otherwise they are just going to push what makes them money. Software margins are high and ISV's are bribed to push it. I think MS gives 6% kickback to vendors that sells a license, which is a revenue stream lost when open source is used. Ask your vendors to present an open alternative alongside their proprietary ones. Same support that management demands, but less risk.
AFAIK, all Enterprises use a proprietary and closed-source OS. With enemies like the Romulans, the Federation will take any kind of security it can get - even security thorough obscurity.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
their own version of Open Office (Lotus Symphony) as the official internal standard this year (I work for them). MS Office will not normally be approved for internal use.
Maybe not true FOSS, but close.
Hard to argue for free software when the buyer's bonuses are based on saving % off MSRP (as it is in government contract procurements). Also if a big name like IBM or Microsoft crashes and burns nobody points the finger at you because there's an entrenched certification system for the monkeys maintaining the damn thing.
moox. for a new generation.
To evaluate the success of your recommendations, take a look in the mirror. What's your credibility to suggest anything at all when you have to come to (of all places) Slashdot for advice?
Large corps have lots at stake, and they really, really, REALLY are terrified of any solutions that aren't basically guaranteed to work by large, trusted vendors. Stuff that they consider to be a competitive advantage will be enshrouded in mystery while everything else will be outsourced to the most commodity vendor.
Now, compare 'Drupal' to 'Microsoft'. Maybe everybody HERE knows how painful it can be to get MS stuff to work, but nobody is going to be fired for saying MS because it's the biggest commodity vendor in the software space.
Look in the mirror: are you trusted there? When you are fired, who is MEGACORP going to go to when there's a problem?
These questions are being answered by PEOPLE who are afraid that if they make a risky decision, they will suffer the consequences. (get fired/sued/whatever) To sell your OSS solution you have to that there's no/little risk in going with it.
Good luck.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
With the economy how it is, corporations are going to avoid the unknown, specifically the unknown costs involved in moving to FOSS. They know the costs involved with MS/IBM/etc., and are going to stick with them. Good luck, ain't gonna happen.
I encountered this when I offered to set up open source web filters in each of our locations and save significant money compared to other solutions. Management agreed ipcop did everything we need, and would save a lot of money but was still hesitant. When I located local contractors in my city who could make changes if I was ever "hit by a bus" they gave me the go ahead.
If you are looking at open source consider opencms which has commercial support that your company can use when you leave or get promoted to another position.
Free Software invariably gets into the Enterprise as a skunkworks project. The managers you are talking to have a budget for a business portal. They want the project to succeed, so that they look good, and they aren't really interested in having money left over in the budget when they are done. They are shopping around for a solution, not a project.
If you really want to get Free Software into your business the proper way to do so is talk the manager in charge of the project into spending most of his money on a proprietary product that won't actually work. There are plenty of commercial offerings out there that are likely to be a bad fit for your business. Talk the manager in question into purchasing one of those, but make sure that he takes all of the credit. It shouldn't be hard if you spent the first part of the purchasing process pushing for Free Software.
Watch the portal project crash and burn.
Now fire up a basic portal on the Free Software platform of your choice. If possible pre-populate it with data and tie it into your existing authorization and authentication mechanisms. The idea is to have a working demo of most of the functionality that the executives wanted.
The downside of this method is that, if you do it enough, you eventually end up being forced into management yourself.
More often than not, what the managers care about is the support. They want to know that they can call someone when the implementation goes sideways and get solutions. They like the fact that Microsoft or IBM can point a finger at a previous deployment and say, "We did the exact same thing that you want to do for this other client over here, and it works. Go ahead, call them." The Microsoft and IBM people have the consulting resources and implementation teams to throw at the project. They have the roadmaps, and whitepapers and case studies. All of those seemingly insignificant things (from a purely technical implementation point of view) add up to give the management warm fuzzies.
Managers do not want to be guinea pigs. They do not want to be the first person on the block to roll out a new technology. In many cases, while FOSS may be capable of doing something, it might not have the track record of doing it. The proven track record is what sells large scale software projects.
They are still recovering from having to replatform web servers to J2EE after some enterprising (courageous) hacker developed their first web site using PERL (before mod_perl days too...).
The "real programmers" looked at it and in their assessment they said that variables should not have $ or % or @ preceding them, that the code was hard to read because they couldn't understand that name => value syntax, and besides, there were all these cool J2EE framework things to play with that had containers and required lots of servers and n->tier architecture stuff that they learned about in their computer science courses.
Having done enough J2EE to suit anybody, and with a clear understanding of when n->tier architecture is appropriate (seldom for most web applications), and having done enough commercial database work to know my way well around all the big players, the real answer is that FOSS easily meets these needs (as you already know). I have seen enlightened companies deploy PHP frameworks including Drupal, a growing use of MySQL, adoption of XEN (it must die, please) and KVM, and you'll not find corporation doing any Java work that isn't taking advantage of an IDE that's built around Eclipse and includes all the lovelies like AXIS and EMF.
Patience grasshopper. Use business terms to win.
--> Scalability
--> Ease of Acquisition
--> Return on Investment
--> Speed to Market
Then point out that there are some awfully big companies who have done wonderful things on Open Source platforms that made them leaner, faster, and stronger. Companies like Sony, IBM, Oracle, Amazon, Viacom. I'd leave out that Wall Street uses a ton of FOSS to run their back office. They don't seem to be doing that well these days and we don't want FOSS to be blamed for anything ;-)
[Is it possible to get modded +5 Redundant?]
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The sad fact is while you are working the managers are out playing a few rounds of golf with
the salesmen, complete with drinks and a lap dance at the local establishment. Most companies
I have dealt with are run by IT managers that will drop a signature in a heart beat for a little
kick back.
Linux
Samba
MySQL
Postgresql
Apache
Perl
Python
Ruby
Gcc
PHP
Java
Asterisk
I think you will find all of these in large corporations. AKA "Enterprise" situations.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Thousands of users and multiple data centers is not the time to ask major stakeholders to leave their comfort zone. "Major vendor FUD" is not the issue, assuming it exists at all. When I have a major investment at stake, I don't need a saleman to tell me where the risks are. The single biggest problem with FOSS is that there is no one to share the risks with.
The time to introduce FOSS is with small non-critical projects. It's about boiling frogs. It's also about demonstrating that community support works without the threat of cancelled contracts and lawsuits. That takes a while.
It also takes some guile. It's a bit like the early days of the PC. At that time the typical IS Manager's attitude to the PC was "over my dead body." So we sold to the end user departments using their office equipment budgets (word processors, fax, telephone, copier) and flew under the IS radar. In one large Canadian federal government department, we had over 1500 PC's and 5 networks interlinked with an X.25 WAN before the ADM/IS noticed (it was the X.25 that got us. WAN came out of his budget). By that time there was nothing he could do. The trick is to introduce it a little bit at a time until it reaches critical mass.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
Whether you use WebSphere from IBM or Sharepoint from Microsoft, you have the ability to leverage an API and develop a custom solution around something that has a few things.
1. A community.
2. Documentation
3. Support
Now I am all for open source in an environment that deems it important, but having an SLA for a solution that is now going to become your intra/extranet is important -- and Drupal doesn't provide that. Sharepoint does, and so does Websphere.
That said, I am actually a big fan of Sharepoint because it's retardedly simple to operate, administer, deploy, and regulate. In an 'enterprise' you are likely running Windows on the desktop with MS Office, and Sharepoint is a simple and inexpensive fit for an enterprise like that.
If you're an 'enterprise' that doesn't use Windows on the desktop I'd be surprised, and have to wonder if your enterprise is a Linux company, Apple, or whether you're just blowing smoke up our ass and think that 50 people is an 'enterprise'.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Drupal case studies.
http://drupal.org/cases
And for Liferay
http://www.liferay.com/web//guest/products/portal/stories
Next question?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Microsoft has been doing exactly the opposite for years.
I'm probably the only one here that read that and thought that migrating from LCARS to Linux might not be in the Federation's best interest. Although I'm sure that 300 years from now, all software is FOSS. ^_^
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
become a part of management. Once there, remember all the reasons you thought open source was a good idea and make the right decision when comparing the two.
I agree that skunkworks projects are effective as well, but I tend to find the above as more effective.
Also, when discussing % off MSRP, consider purchasing a support license for the open source software you plan to use. It's generally much cheaper than a M$ solution and now you can directly quote the difference in price and therefore the company savings.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As a minor aside, the linked OpenLogic survey is useless. They only polled the people who joined their webinar--people already involved enough to be interested in a comparison of FOSS servers. That's one heck of a selection bias.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
The biggest issue you need to overcome with FOSS projects in a business setting is supportability. For example, I'm on a project at the moment where I'm transitioning the customer from a proprietary unix solution onto multiple Oracle RAC clusters on Redhat; Oracle Application servers on Redhat; and Linux Virtual Server load balancing clusters, also on Redhat. This is fine, because the software stack from top to bottom is mainstream, supported by commercial vendors, and after I'm gone there is a well defined set of skills they can recruit against and train existing staff to replace me. Since getting here though I've discovered a few bespoke applications (developed in-house by people who have since left) written using Ruby on Rails. While the apps work well today, documentation is poor to non-existent, and no one is left now with skills to understand them, develop them if requirements change or support them. They aren't backed by a vendor, so if something goes wrong they're screwed. It's kind of their own fault: they gave free rain to someone who either wanted to do this stuff using his own favourite tools, or wanted a tick on his resume, instead of sticking with technologies in line with their core competencies. If you want to do something with Drupal for example, then make sure you're able to wrap it up in a support structure (from a vendor) that can give them the security they need. Another example: I convinced my current customer that switching to Zabbix for their server, application and network monitoring and alert needs would be a good thing, and they went for it. Why? Because while Zabbix is Open Source, it's also backed by a vendor (Zabbix) and they can buy a commercial support contract. In addition, being a FOSS project they could install and test it at no cost for as long as they like before making a decision and parting with their cash. So if you can tick all the boxes, you stand a much better chance of getting your ideas accepted.
And don't listen to anyone who tells you to sneak this stuff in through the back door. If it's under the radar then your employer is in for a nasty surprise if it goes wrong. And if it's business critical you'll find yourself pink slipped faster than you can blink.
I know, I know. Long day and I'm tired.
Companies these days are deploying OSS all over the place, they just tend to use commercially supported distributions of it.... The trick to getting something installed, is to have a recognized vendor sell it.
A lot of OSS is deployed without companies even realizing what it is, a lot of commercial products use OSS heavily but don't say so in the marketing literature... You might get one or two paragraphs buried deep in the technical documentation or an offer to provide sourcecode to some components as required by the GPL.
Although someone could easily clone these products for free, they exist because companies won't use something that's "zero cost", but they will happily use exactly the same code if they paid money for it and bought it from a source they recognize.
Not having to pay for it isn't the biggest benefit of OSS anyway, the freedom to modify, reuse, and use open standards is... If you buy an OSS based product from a major vendor today, you should be able to migrate to the pure OSS zero cost version in the future if you need to save money.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
The software is cheap.
But the fact remains, when the software doesn't work- we can *make* IBM or Microsoft spend thousands of dollars analyzing and FIXING the problem (even if it requires a software patch). We can't *make* a group of random people do that.
I am totally pro FOSS in my personal life. But when my job depends on it, I'd use Microsoft/IBM/etc. on the back end unless the FOSS solutions were absolutely rock solid. My company is so huge that both Microsoft and IBM have had to rewrite portions of their O/S and packages for us.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
and the technical people are interested but management types are not.
Why do the management people think they should override a technical recommendation? Do they not trust their staff? Is the staff misrepresenting something?
Technical: Vendor X provides the best quality, most reliable screwdrivers. They come in all the sizes we need. Vendor Y does not provide the sizes we need. Therefore, we recommend Vendor X.
Management: No, use Vendor X.
I'll admit that this does happen sometimes. But usually the problem is either that the technical staff isn't providing a solution that meets the requirements, or they are not properly communicating.
In the case of OSS, I find that technical people often lump OSS into one set of options, and commercial software into another - which sets them up for failure. Ex:
BAD APPROACH: Mr. Boss, our options are Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes. Oh, but I like this nice open-source package called OpenGroupware that is totally free and open and...
Make a grid of requirements, list the options, and compare them. The fact that they are OSS might be considered a benefit that weights into the decision. But other than that, the management does not need to know who holds the source code.
BETTER APPROACH: Mr Boss, we have three options. They are:
Microsoft Exchange: +1, -1, 0
OpenGroupware: +1, +1, +1
Lotus Notes: -1, -1, 0
-- Each column is a feature/requirement. One of those columns is "source code available" and another might be "community support"
JBoss has been pretty good at penetrating the corporate data center. I think Glassfish will do well also since it's backed by a company that already has a presence in many corporate data centers.
Since Liferay is a J2EE app, it should be a little easier since most corporate customers are already using the J2EE stack. Liferay also offers "enterprise support" if that means anything.
This might be a good time to call a Sun rep and give them your requirements and tell them you want an open source solution.
There was talk of Java Enterprise System being open sourced but I don't think that ever happened. If that's a more palatable solution for management, it might be cheaper.
Sun isn't very popular on here but they're good at getting open source into the enterprise... with support.
Dual Opteron < $600
One convincing argument for using FOSS is to name major companies/organizations using it. For Drupal there is a nice list of sites at http://buytaert.net/tag/drupal-sites. Among organizations are Google, Nokia, Symantec, NHL, Disney, Sun and Nike to name a few.
The 'users' of a web filter are sysadmins. These expert 'users' are the ones who interface with the server and router software that runs a network.
In this discussion, we are talking about true end-users and the desire of sysadmin types to make them use a nebulous classification of software ('Linux') that only the expert can competently sort through to make a desktop work.
The management types instinctively know that what the author is trying to sell them isn't something most end-users can grasp. And that just doesn't float in an environment that normally centers around person computers and their distinct operating systems. Management might have to use this 'Linux' thing themselves, despite never really registering its Look and Feel. And they probably never will because it doesn't have one per se.
The only sure way to promote Linux-based desktops in a large corporate environment is to pitch a shift toward managed thin clients, and don't mention 'Linux' until much later. IT management understands that thin clients are a different paradigm than PCs, with the former being centrally managed by one or two sysadmins; they may even understand that Unix/Linux does thin clients well; they also won't let you anywhere near their middle- and upper-management PCs (glorified terminals are for peons).
In Germany and the other German speaking parts of Europe you'd have a hard time with Drupal too - but for entirely different reasons. Here Typo3 pratically owns the portal, intranet and CMS market. That's right. The FOSS Project Typo3 is the market leader for portal software in Germany and neighbours. The secondary market for soltions based on and built around Typo3 is way beyond critical mass and has been growing since around 2001. You have 3rd party vendors, "Typo3 Agencies" (an actual generic term - no joke!), a f*cking regular quarterly Typo3 magazine and hosters specialised on Typo3 with all the bells and wistles. Amazon.de scores around fourty (40!) hits for German books and training DVDs on Typo3 and Typo3 specific subjects. And if you're looking for a job as a web professional, it's more or less a safe bet to get into a little Typo3 & TypoScript - you'll get a gig in no time. Or at least a project or two to make ends meet. Even during this downtime there are serious job-offerings for this sort of thing.
Now if only T3 wouldn't be such a bizar behemoth operating system of a PHP CMS, I'd be really happy. But since it's open source, I guess there's not that much to moan about.
I'm a Joomla guy btw. I've seen the fucked up appmodel reverse enginered of a T3-DB of Typo3 4.0 and thus will not look at T3 again until the entire redo is finished in Version 5.0. :-)
Bottom line: MS and other proprietary vendors are a minority in this field in Germany and still businesses are thriving around the prime software solution which is FOSS. I don't see why this shouldn't happen other places aswell. It's not like German businesses are particularly known for their recklessnes or their lack of sense of quality.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Well, let's see. It has to be priced at at least $2,000,000, so the big boss can say "Whatever the price is, we get half off!" and save the company a million dollars. And also, uh, what were we talking about?
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
How? Easy: it met their three requirements for a third-party product
That's all it took, plus the hidden criteria, of course: it worked better than SCO.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Do research on other companies who have deployed FOSS enterprise-wide. The company I currently work switched gears from a proprietary language based sites to one in Drupal. http://www.jacksonville.com/ now is ranked #4 for best newspaper site http://www.jacksonville.com/business/2009-02-09/story/jacksonvillecom_ranked_no_4_among_nations_top_newspaper_sites Using Drupal has allowed us to package a highly configurable product that we can rapidly deploy to our other business units. I suggest looking for other similar situations.
Life==Jeopardy. All the answers are right in front us - the hard part is coming up with the correct question.
I work for a small to medium sized company (4,000+). Our intranet group went with Drupal. It's been remarkably configurable. Some folks were pushing for SharePoint. To get there, we had a group (in-house) review current system types (static, CMS, Portal) and features of each group. Then made a decision as to what level we wanted to shoot for. SharePoint didn't sufficiently make the feature list, and Drupal (and others) did.
Gentlemen, this is the proposed cost of a commercial solution. This is the cost of an OSS solution. I have included twelve years' worth of the increased salaries that will be required for higher competence in the IT department than would otherwise be necessary, but I have done nothing to reflect the higher availability and reliability that would result from increased staff skill.
There are ten of you in the room. Your individual bonuses should work out to roughly 250K each this year based on the savings realized through use of OSS. If you would like to give me more insight on how your compensation is calculated I can be more accurate.
Worked for me!!!
Look at how well Red Hat is doing in the 'enterprise', and you have your answer. You just need to contact a reputable Red Hat or Novell partner, and get them invited to respond to the same RFP process that the big name vendors are, and they're in the same market with the same backing only using the software we know and love. Oh - you're working with a couple of companies... that means you are the reseller? In which case contact the vendor direct, and get help from them. That's what they're for!
-Xav
There are plenty of examples of web services running on Open Source for 'enterprise' use - groupware, CRM, accounting, the works. Some of these packages are very good.
Its hard to be specific/determine what you're trying to do without knowing more specifics as to what you're looking for. Of the groupware projects I'm aware of, I know the following have a fair amount of support/use:
* Plone CMS
* OBM
* eGroupWare
* Drupal
* Typo3
Of these, I know that Plone, Drupal, and Typo3 are all "platforms" for developing, managing, and extending content. I seem to recall either eGroupWare or OpenGroupWare extend/integrate with MS Office products. No, it's not going to be the level of integration that Sharepoint stuff offers, but it's something to mention, at any rate (and isn't going to have the massive licensing costs + perpetual lock-in that a MS solution has*).
Plone, in particular, has a lot of support and corporate/"enterprise" use. From their site:
Plone is among the top 2% of all open source projects worldwide, with 200 core developers and more than 300 solution providers in 57 countries. The project has been actively developed since 2001, is available in more than 40 languages, and has the best security track record of any major CMS.
It is owned by the Plone Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, and is available for all major operating systems.
Sources: CVE and Ohloh.
That alone is impressive enough; but also consider some of the notable companies which utilize Plone in/for a variety of purposes:
Akamai (yeah, that Akamai - the guys who load balance Microsoft web servers)
Nokia (QT Software stuff)
MyCity ("real time monitoring system for Cities, Towns, Districts or utilities. It makes use of the GPRS service offered by the various GSM network operators")
Discover Magazine
Novell, Inc. (for enterprise services)
NASAScience (public site for NASA's Science Mission Directorate)
FSF (yeah, those hippies)
universities, university science/it departments, hospitals, public/government sites... the list goes on.
Those are notable company names, and at least in the case of Akamai, Novell and Nokia, everyone in IT should know about them. They're also some fairly diverse (and expansive) implementations using the same central CMS - and they're not shackled to a single software backend, able to run on any OS and server combination they could imagine.
* The cost factor associated with MS solution lock-in is a big consideration, bigger than just a simple argument of something like "OpenOffice vs. MS Office". With a web-based, top-level technology like this, it's much, much more important to keep the technologies used "open" - because it is the top-level interface to all your data. You can not move away from a closed package on the backend without moving the entire system, at once, to something open (more often than not, with MS). You're basically stuck with that stack unless you want to start over; there's no ability to independently consider parts of the stack and replace them, as there often is with open systems.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
As have done several of my buddies and former buddies, all of them Slashdot users.
There is nothing wrong with asking Slashdot, this stupid snobbery has got to stop frankly...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That's about the sum of it. Big "enterprise" is steeped in the "no one ever got fired for buying [large lumbering vendor]" culture. One of the advantages of small businesses is that they're nimble and willing to experiment, especially if they can realize cost savings along the way. Bigcos only started using Linux servers after they percolated their way up from the bottom, and that's going to be the case for every new grassroots technology, whether it's open source content management, open source collaboration, etc.
Gunning straight for the enterprise is a losing proposition.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Firefox
SSH
LaTeX
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sendmail
bind
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
In some organizations, the suits view open source like gambling. This isn't because itis truly gambling, but rather they've never considered paying for support from open source vendors,
many of which would be glad to work for a buck. Oh Wait, they kinda do to some extent! What a novel thought! Paying for Support or Lifecycle support... Obviously this doesn't mean
that they have to hire someone from a project, but rather pay a retainer for support in a similar way that M$ gets paid for LTS. Finally, if someone can't ADAPT, then dare I say it? They
may not know what they're doing. If this company has hired competent individuals with the ability to be creative and organized, then open source should thrive here.
Consider the possibility management might be wise to be concerned about supportability and enterprise-readiness. The good news is at least they're thinking about those things. Of course, I don't know your management like you do, and you may have cause to believe their actions are borne of being awash in perks.
But as crazy as it may seem, let's assume they're really interested in what's best for the company. Is your solution better, faster, cheaper, supportable, and enterprise-ready? If so, sell your idea to them in management language. A "suggestion" isn't enough. It's their sandbox.
1995 called and they want both their article and their snarky post back.
Seriously... what company is this? Buy their competitor's stock. These guys are just going to hand their business over to the competition.
Sometimes businesses legitimately choose non-Open Source products... this is not one of those times. The reasons listed make me question both the wisdom and the sanity of management at that company.
Good Luck. I have faced this my entire tech life. There are lots of business using OpenSource products and I've made all the arguments. It's often about the back room business agreements "business partners" then any tech. For example, Hertz Car Rental buys IBM and Cisco because they use Hertz cars almost exclusively. You can't fight this.
Garner say 85 percent of companies are already using open source. In this day in age, if you companies is not using OS, they are a dinosaur.
There are 10 type of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Your suits probably drive BMW's and Mercedes, their mentality is to go for the big brand.
You can sell linux as the Tesla Roadster - less well known and very different, but new, exciting, and the way of the future.
If I'm right about these guys your best bet is to price Linux at 10% more than any other solution.
1. Linux servers - 7 of them, mostly file servers
2. JBoss servers - 1, we are trying to replace a Websphere-based Insurance app with JBoss
3. One Or Zero Helpdesk software, which has been customised for multiple support functions such as ICT, HR, Accounts, Payroll, Purchase, Inventory etc.
4. DotProject - To manage 'scheduled' medium and long term tasks (not breakdowns or ticket-based tasks)
5. Zimbra - Experimenting with Zimlets, we still use Exchange; Zimbra is servicing couple domains with about 220 users
6. Open NMS / Nagios for Network Monitoring and alerts - works in sync with One Or Zero
7. B2Evolution Blog software - seems to be the best fit for our needs
8. PACS-One - open source PACS system for a hospital in the same group
9. We also use Joomla, vTiger CRM and other bits and pieces of FOSS code as starting points for some projects.
All of the tools from 3 to 9 have been customised to use a single sign on system and centralised user management. Reply below this post with your email id if you like more details to be emailed to you.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I got Slashdot, Google, Ebay, Amazon, YouTube and Facebook to start using Linux and FOSS software. It was a lot of work, but I thought it was worthwhile at the time. Next up: Linux.com. If I can convince those guys, then I think I can convince anyone.
Why don't you have a Redhat sales rep come talk to them?
FOSS is like corporate masturbation. Nobody talks about it but everyone does a lot of it. I've recently worked in a number of MS shops. In each case, I have found that once you start digging, there's a lot of FOSS holding things together: source code control, pbxes, test tools, compilers, damn near anything Java, specialized processors, filters, monitors and network services as well as the usual backbone of file and http services. Even the bluest Microsoft shops find themselves outsourcing to FOSS vendors because their products and services are cheaper and better than they can do in-house.
Hard to argue for free software when the buyer's bonuses are based on saving % off MSRP (as it is in government contract procurements).
With FOSS, you always "negotiate" a 100% discount off MSRP for the product (it was free to begin with) and 100% discount on all upgrades. If a commercial supplier matches that offer, then it's a level playing field, with all costs in the support contracts.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Food und Drink, mostly
I don't know about the other areas but in J2EE servers you can push Glassfish :)
It's the Sun J2EE server, it has support and is used by several imporant enterprises. Read here
And I do not work for Sun
I was involved with the deployment of Plone in a large UK bank (hint: now publicly owned). This was for about 35,000 commercial banking traders, so was definitely a large system, especially considering most of those users authenticated each day.
This was deployed on a cluster of about a dozen machines, including both Linux and Solaris servers, with a big EMC storage array (live sync with DR centre via SRDF). A complete replica of this at the DR site too.
The odd thing I noticed was whilst this particular division was quite progressive and willing to adopt an Open Source solution, the rest of the business was not so willing... yet very happy to develop software internally for use.
If anyone here has worked in a large (non-software) corporation they will know that pretty much every piece of software that has been developed by someone in-house goes on to become a support headache over the years. Especially once the person who wrote it leaves the organisation. Just go read The Daily WTF... these things are real.
At the start of this project, the bank did not officially support Linux, so we had to develop all our own procedures and support infrastructure. By the end of the project, the bank was asking our team to help form the bank's global Linux support policy.
So one way of explaining OSS to bosses at these organisation is by telling them that it is like in-house developed software, but has he advantage that there is a whole community of people out there to help support it. In the case of Plone (and other well established OSS projects) there are commercial support companies out there that will give you paid-for support and SLAs. Not only that, but you have a choice of companies, rather than just one software vendor in a typical commercial software scenario.
As Paul Everitt (of Zope fame) once said many years ago: 'Software is not an asset, it is a liability'. Some very true words to try and get over to some organisations.
-Matt
If you have a problem, you call support and it is either fixed in the release you haven't installed or it will be fixed in an upcoming release, that's called support. Enterprises love to pay big money for this and most open source has no support so your dumb ass sys admin has no one to call when his manager tells him to call support. This is the reason people buy Redhat instead of just using Fedora, Centos or any other distro.
where did you people learn to give such nice comments :)
http://askaralikhan.blogspot.com/
I've been working here for 3 years and have continually pushed FOSS at everything we can use it for. Currently our intranet is running MediaWiki, our mail servers are postfix, monitoring is cacti and nagios and our production systems are running JBoss and Apache. I'm pretty sure this is mainly because I have a deep routed love for free stuff and believe that it represents a better offering in terms of support, ease of use and cost.
I come from enterprise enviroments but own a small company now and am pro open source where it can be used.
We run:
And a bunch of stuff i can't really name right now.. HOWEVER: we do run Active Directory, Windows 2003 and 2008 Machines, Exchange, some IIS Sites aswell, MS SQL, windows XP desktops etc.. etc..
In the enterprise enviroment, i implemented several of the above applications too.
Although being a small company now, the enterprise criteria are still in my head since they exist only cause this issues were a large pain in the butt...
A Plan
Most somewhat larger FOSS projects have a plan and a roadmap but i've seen some killer apps that i could not implement basically because the plan was: "if developer wakes up and has great idea, then project get's new release"
Single-Signon.
you don't want administrators who ONLY create useraccounts all day long in 80-something systems
Support
if you can't get professional support for it, it's out.. you don't want to have your Firewall down on the day that the only capable person in the company is sick and the developer(s) of the FOSS project just became dad so 'don't have time now' Large community CAN do the trick but actual professional services are better
Integration
Can be done itself but then the whole "suppport" thingy will go to hell..so preferrable support integration between required packages. we have done some customizations but only on database level, never in the code so you don't have to worry about upgrading
Licensing
I'm no expert at this but i've seen software been rejected by legal and IS because the license it was under, gave issues with: adaption and/or did not give us any insurrance on continuity. If the company pulls a stunt like "selling" the project to a major corporation which in turn make it a commercial product or strip out functionality in the "community edition" which is really popular right now. you have you back against the wall.. In a production enviroment, switch big components like database and/or integration software is no small ordeal.. the alternative is that you once "expected to be very low" TCO, is going up cause you have to buy the commercial edition of the product.
2. JBoss servers - 1, we are trying to replace a Websphere-based Insurance app with JBoss
How's this going? My experience with the JBoss 4 series was that it was a constantly changing, always incomplete implementation of EJB3, and it nearly sank our little company through wasted time. Abandoning it was critical to our survival. How close is JBoss 5 to a drop-in replacement for Websphere?
What do you think MS does? It uses LDAP, RADIUS and PKI. Wraps it up inside an obscuring container and then touts it as the One True Login. And INSIST they invented it.
And you, with that MS cock firmly down your throat swallow it all.
"my feeling is that they are being won over by FUD from large vendors"
If management goes with FOSS, they're right-thinking visionaries. If they prefer a commercial solution they're being swayed by FUD from the sales team.
It's a crazy idea, I know, but maybe they think the commercial solution best meets the requirements.
MSS=MicroSoft Software
http://www.shekhargovindarajan.com/open-source/open-source-alternatives-to-microsoft-products/
Not feature for feature alternatives, but, may be alternatives for your requirements.
One such app is Compiere, but it "owned" by a single company and its framework tools are not the best.
The Apache Open for Business project (ofbiz.apache.org) has the backing of the Apache Foundation and is truly a community supported app. In addition to having a complete suite of apps, it has an ingenious, lightweight framework that greatly increases the efficiencies of developers.
It is not an easy application to get your arms around, but what true enterprise app is? If I were going to invest time and resources in an OSS enterprise app, I would not allow my company to roll its own or use some small market gesture by some optimistic dreamers; I would go with the one organization that has the critical mass to pull something like this off - the Apache Foundation.
Sun systems has all the open source apps you need. Plus they have paid support to keep the suits happy.
Sounds like you've never used MS technical support.
If you have a priority 1 issue then Microsoft will stay on the phone with you for however long it takes to get things resolved.
Even as a developer you can get this level of support for code problems, and they are very responsive.
Is it free? No. An MSDN subscription gets you a freebie, otherwise you have to pay per incident but the cost is not that high ($250 a shot IIRC).
If you have an MSDN subscription definately take advantage of your support; it's well worth it.
No, I do not work for Microsoft. :)
oracle rac runs extremely well in a Linux Cluster. ... and the hardware replaced a Mainframe/AS400 ERP system.
I've worked at several companies that used Oracle RAC and Oracle 11g. Here's what they had in common,
an EMC Clarion SAN, 16 application server, 8 database servers, BIG IP load balancing,
I worked at another site that used a new Z series mainframe running Oracle on Linux partitions.
I worked at a well known company that the name will ring a bell during tax time.. the jboss production servers ran on....... Linux. The hardware used in most of the deployments was Dell 6600 series for the database servers, Dell 2650 series for the application servers, one deployment
featured an HP Blade server with 64 cores.
Oracle on Linux rocks.. Oracle on AIX too..
you have to know how to tune both platforms and that's how you earn money with open source.
You can not run Oracle on Linux out of the box, or AIX for that matter... You need to know how to tune the kernel and operating system. that's how earn my money.
There's PROS and CONS for every Operating System out there.
I wouldn't dog linux.. I'd dog redhat though..
Go Centos! Long live Whitebox! Gentoo Rocks... .. that's the cause. How about the kernel panics while your backup was running ??? yup same damn cause. If you ran Whitebox the problem didn't exist... why??
OpenSuse innovates on the desktop connectivity level.
Redhat introduces bugs to their distro that hampers performance on large machines... so much for their tuning. To fix the slab memory issues on AS 2.1 I went with a similar kernel from kernel.org... slab error gone. I told the RH tech support guy in 2003 that if they want to know what I did then I want a 20% of the CEOs salary. I said it's bullshit that he earns $5M off the sweat and long hours contributed by the open source community. (That was in 2003). I believe I was one of the first to have a Dell 6600 w 4 XEON processors and 16GB of ram not crashing from a heavy I/O load. The problem didn't originate in the standard opensource kernel. the problem was due to Redhat's tuning. what would happen is a busy system would be brought down when there wasn't much contiguous memory in SLAB.. so.. if you remember the notorius nfs lockups
I posted it for whitebox.
redhat almost ruined it for the enterprise. luckily the new blood getting hired knows better.
Linux rocks.. it runs on anything from an embedded system to a mainframe! That's HUGE!
You know what redhat stands for right?
One
Raging
Asshole
Called
Larry
Ellison
Praise be to God! Seriously, the religious overtones of this webapp (and the author) makes me shudder.
Kasper Scarhoj gave up the lead for Typo3 around 2 years ago. He's still a respected member of the community - and for good reasons too - but he does not lead Typo3 anymore. And his confessional overtones - as irritating they may be at times - are actually quite bearable and not that common either. His podcast actually is quite entertaining and informative.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Is Linux based technology ready to be deployed in the 'Enterprise'.
This 'enterprise', is it small, medium, big ?
What criteria does the 'enterprise' have - did anyone bother to ask in the time they were declaring conformity?
Each case would be something examined on it's own merits.
To be honest, it is ready, for some things. It is not ready for others, and in many cases, it is _so_ far from actually being ready that only idiots would claim it to be so.
Further, enterprise ready means one core thing, it does not mean you can have the code and fit it yourself, it means you sign up with some big fat company that if you hit a problem you can call them and they help you fix it.
In this respect, actually all software, be it 'proprietry' or FOSS is the same. And I laugh in the face of any idiot who sits down with the starting premise that 'you have the code, you can fix it yourself!'
Some claim licensing and terms has an effect. True, but licensing 'enterprise' Linux products costs, just as licensing proprietry software does, and in both cases, if the vendor goes bust, you could be left in serious trouble. That is the nature of the beast.
It's sad to see, but par for the course to see the vendors (proprietry) being hammered here, and the sun shining out of rectum in terms of FOSS. Neither is perfect, neither is going to be perfect, and in either case, best tool for the job, taking into account_everything_, fully, and in an examined way.
We`re all equal