IT IS HARD TO IMAGINE THAT JUST A FEW YEARS AGO, some organizations had strict rules against putting any open source software on the corporate systems. The stated reason was that the software was unreliable, could compromise corporate security, and may adversely affect network performance. Since then, the open source movement has been making steady inroads in the corporate world. Starting with the Internet and IT infrastructure, the open source software is steadily moving up the application stack. Along the way, the open source software now rivals commercial software in reliability, performance, and scalability. A recent Department of Defense document concludes that there would be immediate, broad, and strongly negative impacts on the ability of many sensitive and security-focused groups to defend against cyber attacks.

Given that the open source software is gaining ground rapidly, there is a significant opportunity for consultants and consulting companies to serve the market, as long as they focus their efforts appropriately. In order to understand where they need to focus, they must understand the issues facing the IT departments, and must tailor their offering to address those pain points.

ROI / TCO Analysis
Ultimately, the goal of IT departments is to deliver optimal performance while keeping costs low. Towards that end, IT managers and executives must make a conscious effort to quantify the expected ROI and the expected TCO of the open source software. This is no different than any software purchase. Just because the purchase price is small or zero does not mean that the total cost is low. Sometimes the deployment and maintenance cost can overwhelm the acquisition cost.

Support
Today’s IT infrastructure has become mission critical in every organization, no matter the size. Any outage for any reason causes a major effect on the business. Even in the non high-tech world, people have come to rely on the IT infrastructure in their daily work. Hence, good, reliable, enterprise grade support is essential for any hardware or software before it can be deployed in the IT data center.

Traditionally, a dedicated team of volunteers has supported open source software. But this support typically was over email only. Sensing the need, companies like Red Hat and others, started offering various levels of support. For example, Red Hat offers support for the OS, the JBoss group offers support for the application server, etc. In most other cases, volunteers support the open source software via email. Before adopting an open source package, the IT group must ensure that the level of support available matches the business criticality of the software.

Training
When moving over to the open source software, there may be a need for training for developers and administrators. The availability and cost of training is a factor in determining the TCO of the software.

Migration Issues
If there are custom applications that need to be migrated, then migration cost must be considered. If the applications use third party software products such as libraries, or build tools, then the corresponding software must also be migrated, or work with the chosen open source software. Finally, the homegrown tools, utilities, and scripts must also be migrated. There may be changes in the operations procedures and scripts as a result of migration.

Assuming that IT managers and executives are diligent about considering all the issues mentioned above, there is still the issue of determining what part of the IT infrastructure is suitable for open source deployment. Further, it is extremely unlikely that all the IT needs of an organization can be satisfied purely by open source software. There has to be integration of open source and commercial software.

Most IT organizations do not have either the capability or the desire to deal with incomplete or buggy software. A large percentage of open source software is still in the experimental or developmental stage. This naturally means that there will be bugs and the functionality will not be complete. Deploying such software will require significant investment in time and technical expertise. Unless the organization is willing to do this, only the mature open source packages must be considered for adoption.

The desktop software is reasonably mature, and will be sufficiently good for a large majority of the corporations. The business application software is not yet fully mature. Some early adopters have started using it, but the vast majority has not yet experimented with it. Depending on its risk profile and internal technical strength, an organization must use the right set of open source software. We recommend a stepwise adoption of open source software, starting with the web infrastructure, and eventually moving to enterprise applications. However, this generic recommendation must be customized for each organization, since each organization is different.

Some IT organizations have the technical expertise to undertake deployment of open source software and subsequent migration of existing systems on their own. Most organizations however, will rely on system integrators and software consulting companies to undertake the effort. While doing so, the IT organizations must ensure that vendor doing the migration and deployment understands the relevant software, and is willing to support and maintain it. The last thing that an organization needs is to be left with a software installation that is no longer supported. If appropriate, the vendor must be willing to train the IT engineers on the administration and use of the software.

Just as IT organizations need an open source strategy, consulting companies must also have an open source strategy. The right way is to set up an open source competency center staffed by engineers that can provide the engineering and training needed by the consultants for integration and deployment. They can create cookbooks and cookie cutter approaches that increase the productivity of the consultants. This model helps deliver open source services in a cost effective manner. The engineers must play around with open source, and run through the same process that their potential customers will. This will give them a first hand feel for the problems and the limitations that are likely to be faced by their customers. The consulting company can then tailor its open source offering accordingly.

The open source movement and its rapid adoption by mainstream businesses presents a great opportunity for software consultants and engineers. Anyone who is willing to invest in some commodity hardware and some time, can set up a fairly sophisticated open source lab in his or her own house. Because the underlying source is available, they can familiarize themselves with the internals and with some effort, can become experts in the software of their choice. They will do well to focus on the major pain points of the IT organizations namely – migration, deployment, integration and support issues. Going one step further, they can do a great service to themselves and the open source community by contributing their expertise and their time. There is a growing consensus that open source movement will expand deep into the IT infrastructure, and spread to the business applications. In some companies, open source software will move into the desktop arena as well. Consulting companies must develop an open source strategy and position themselves to serve this growing market. Engineers can use the availability open source software to upgrade their skills and participate in the growth.

Sanjeev Jorapur heads up the Open Source practice at Xoriant Corporation, a provider of software consulting and outsourcing services.