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Although the benefits of moving to open source are enticing and encouraging however, the actual process of transformation has to be well thought out. The transformation costs and benefits could be uncertain. The drivers of uncertainty include Switching Costs, End-User Adoption, and Software Capabilities of the tools under consideration.
Xebia offers a structured approach to Open Source Transformation in which the client partner is in full control of process. The entire process hinges on early feedback, transparency and objective analysis of return on investment.
The various steps of the process are as defined:
Snapshot Assessment
In this phase we do a thorough analysis of the existing Commercial Softwares in the enterprise along with their interactions.
Mapping
Map the commercial software and their linkages to the Open source alternatives.
Go Ahead Decision
This is a critical phase in the lifecycle of the transformation where a report is shared with the stakeholders on the feasibility, cost and effort required to carry out the transformation. The stakeholders can then take an informed decision on whether it is in business interest to go ahead with the planned transformation or not. If it is not a viable alternative then the engagement stops.
Identify transformable components
If the transformation needs to be carried out and is viable then a list of all the components which can be transformed is prepared. Here the component is not a software component but a business component. For example, the mail infrastructure could be a large business component. Likewise, the message queue could be a smaller component.
Pilot Transformation
A small part of the business component is transformed to validate the results. This phase helps in understanding the situation better and is apt for getting some quick wins and failures.
Transform and Train
On the basis of success of the pilot, entire business component is moved to Open source. It is now thoroughly tested in the DTAP environment and the relevant people are trained.
Deploy
The transformed Open Source based business component begins its life in production.
Steps 5 to 7 would repeat for all the components identified for transformation.
Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process.
Many organizations would like to switch to open source for a wide variety of reasons, some of them include:
No software licensing fees a.k.a Lower TCO - Running Open Source systems costs you less. Even a medium sized enterprise can save hundreds of thousands of pounds every year by not having to pay for software licensing.
Crowd sourced Reliability - Open Source software is 'peer-reviewed software'. It's been scrutinised by thousands of developers around the world.
Low cost of Hardware - Open Source software is uniquely engineered to run fast on low specification hardware. Software kernels can be tailored specifically for the hardware you run meaning that you only build in the drivers you need. The result is leaner architectures running on lower grade hardware without compromising on performance.
Keeping pace with change - The proprietary software licence model assumes that the IT systems on which it runs is "fixed" in terms of its scale, and that the organisation using the software has relatively stable usage of the software. But virtualisation technologies used in networking and advances in the underlying hardware platforms have introduced a level of usage elasticity that make these licensing models redundant. Only the Open Source software model - where licensing fees have given way to high-quality, commercial support - can keep pace with new advances in IT infrastructure and deliver tangible business benefits to the customer.
Security - Due to the strong separation between normal users and the privileged root user, Open Source users have to be running as root to really do any damage to the system.
More interoperable - More interoperable By not being tied into a single vendor you still have the freedom to give end users the best tools for the job.
Protection of Investment - Using proprietary software means that your vendor's corporate decision-making can end the future of your mission-critical applications overnight. Closed source code means there's simply nobody to carry on its development or support. Enterprise-class Open Source technologies will never put you in this position. Open Source means your technology choices are future-proofed - active projects will always be have experts on hand to support your deployment.
Freedom - Beyond all the savings, reliability, and security gains, the Open Source model has one overwhelming advantage for the software customer: you're not a prisoner.Using Open Source means you're no longer at the mercy of unfixed bugs, shackled to every 'strategic' upgrade decision of the commercial vendor makes and are no longer subject to their exorbitant support fees.
