So, as open-source software continues to grow, vendors are offering multipoint open-source solution bundles consisting of hardware, open-source software, consultation, configuration services, and support, making it much easier to purchase, deploy, and maintain these types of products.

Open Source Today: Gaining Market Share & Adding Value

Most industry watchers would agree that open source is gaining momentum in today’s marketplace. Data collected by the Yankee Group’s 2007 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Survey certainly reveals that open-source solutions for email, Web presence, and even databases are not going away anytime soon. For example, 23% of the nearly 1,000 IT managers and C-level executives who responded to the survey said they planned to migrate from Microsoft’s Exchange Server (www.microsoft.com) and replace it with a Linux (www.linux.org) or open-source messaging platform in the next 12 to 18 months.

Reasons cited for this migration included open-source solutions’ reduced costs and complexity, along with difficulties encountered in managing and maintaining Exchange installations. Some survey respondents cited the fact that they encountered more reliability and fewer issues with their open-source messaging platforms than with Exchange.

Britta Serog, vice president of marketing for eRacks Open Source Systems (eracks.com), a provider of open-source application and hardware systems, says open-source solutions deliver better security, scalability, control, and efficiency to the enterprise. For example, says Serog, license costs, renewals, upgrade costs per user, complicated licensing schemes, per user service licenses, etc. are all factors that greatly affect scalability and expansion.

James Rankin, a technology specialist with CDW (www.cdw.com), a well known reseller of technology products and services, says open-source products’ open file formats are beneficial because they allow organizations to easily achieve interoperability between applications and retain the ability to read files well into the future.

And, he adds, because open-source applications’ source code is open, tailoring an application to fit specific needs is possible. This level of customization is simply not possible with prepackaged applications from specific vendors because the source code that composes those applications is the intellectual property of the vendor and not available for customers to tinker with.

Multifunction Open Source Hits Its Stride

There are a number of multifunction open-source products in the marketplace today helping organizations do everything from providing messaging services to hosting Web sites. For example, says Serog, eRacks offers server solutions qualified to run properly with just about any open-source operating system chosen by the customer.

The company’s eRacks Virtualization Host Servers are powered by one or two dual-core AMD Opteron CPUs running either VMware or Linux’s KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) to enable customers to run a variety of open-source applications in virtualized environments. Examples of applications include mySQL (www.mysql.com) or PostgreSQL (www.postgresql.org) for databases, Zimbra (www.zimbra.com) for email messaging and collaboration, Jaspersoft Business Intelligence Suite (www.jaspersoft.com), Asterisk IP telephony platform (www.asterisk.org), and others.

And, adds Serog, the company has forged an alliance with the Libre Group (www.thelibregroup.com) to provide open-source enterprise migration consulting services for its customers.

CDW’s Rankin says the company provides open-source products that run the gamut from operating systems to productivity applications to mail servers.

“We are partnered with open-source leaders,” adds Rankin, “such as Red Hat, Novell, Xandros, mySQL, and more.” And, he points out, by offering a variety of open-source products, CDW customers enjoy flexibility and a variety of options when choosing products.

Examples of open-source products used in business today include the Apache Web server (www.apache.org), Zimbra Collaboration Suite 4.5 (for messaging and collaboration), Asterisk IP telephony system, and databases such as mySQL and PostgreSQL.

Open Source Goes Mission Critical

Everyone is familiar with applications such as the open-source Apache Web server, which is the most widely used Web server today. But other open-source products providing mission-critical functionality are coming to the forefront and beginning to receive attention from administrators who want to realize the advantages of open source.

For example, technology stalwart HP (www.hp.com) offers its OSIP (Open Source Integrated Portfolio), a series of application, hardware platform, and consulting services bundles designed to help customers deploy open source across Linux, Windows, and HP-UX 11i environments. HP’s OSIP features the company’s OSMS (Open Source Middleware Stacks), which consist of software components (HP Open Source Building Blocks), blueprints for middleware stacks (HP Open Source Blueprints), and consulting services (HP Open Source Services). In a nutshell, HP is providing prospective customers with tightly integrated bundles of open-source applications, architectures, and the consulting services required to put everything together.

Components of HP’s OSIP include operating systems such as Linux, HP-UX, and Windows, and middleware applications such as JBoss Application Server, JEMS (JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite), or Symas Connexitor Directory Services. Hardware platforms include HP’s Integrity, ProLiant, BladeSystem, and StorageWorks. And the deployment and configuration of all of these components is done using HP’s global consulting and support services organization, which has over 6,500 worldwide open-source service professionals.

Another example of an open-source multifunction bundle is Novell’s Open Workgroup Suite Small Business Edition (www.novell.com), a bundle of applications covering the bases from networking services to desktop productivity suites and designed to fit the budgets of smaller businesses. The Suite includes Novell’s Open Enterprise Server, GroupWise, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, and Open-Office.org Novell Edition.

For those businesses that need more, the Novell Open Workgroup Suite adds Novell’s ZENworks Suite of system management tools to the bundle.

Open Source Grows Up

There is no doubt open source is rapidly growing up. The fact that open-source multifunction bundles are increasing in popularity is testimony to the fact that vendors sense an opportunity to offer customers enterprise-class solutions that don’t stretch IT budgets to their limits. Open source is poised to provide intense competition against established, proprietary solutions vendors, most notably Microsoft. In the end, no matter how things shake out, one thing’s for sure: Customers will win as plenty of choices become available.

by Sixto Ortiz Jr.