CHOICE
THE GUIDING PRINCIPLE IN
SELECTING OPEN SOURCE
SOFTWARE, VIRTUALISATION
AND CLOUD
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To gain competitive advantage and operate more efficiently,
organisations are continually looking for ways to reduce costs,
enhance quality and improve their flexibility and agility. Three of
the top trending topics in IT that claim to meet these objectives
are Open Source Software (OSS), virtualisation and cloud.
But as is so often the case, zealots and naysayers confuse the debate with polarised arguments espousing an all-or-nothing approach, e.g. Microsoft or Linux, VMware or RHEV, public or
private cloud. All this does is create paralysis as IT practitioners wait for the die to be cast.
What is required is a tentative and balanced approach to OSS and Linux planning which considers how you can start to leverage the benefits today whilst retaining the agility to manoeuvre as each of these stories unfolds.
CHOICE:
THE GUIDING
PRINCIPLE IN SELECTING
OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE,
VIRTUALISATION AND
AGILITY
There are two facets to choice; the first is having one.
In almost all cases, OSS will be adopted into a mixed environment which allows you to introduce a dual- or multi-sourcing strategy. This in and of itself provides choice. Choice in this sense enables you to retain agility and power as vendors define their technology and pricing roadmaps - you are no longer restricted by their choices; your fate is no longer dictated by theirs.
This choice can help you to:
BE STRATEGIC
The second facet of choice is making it. First you must identify potential targets for OSS and then make a choice. It is here that a pragmatic and objective approach is necessary; essentially choose the right tool for the job. To do so you must:
01.Define the job
02.Establish that the tool is fit-for-purpose 03.Undertake a cost-benefit analysis.
In this way the adoption of Linux and OSS is a measured decision, congruent with the business and IT strategy and fit for purpose.
What remains is to ensure that:
It is architected in a way that drives efficiencies and productivity from your business applications Its design incorporates a systems management approach that drives standardisation,
automation and repeatability to reduce the need for resource-intensive manual intervention It is all underpinned by a clear service management framework for identifying, planning, delivering and supporting IT services to the business
Leverage better
pricing highest levels of qualityDemand the Select the technologies that enable you to best adapt to your changing
environment
Drive competitive advantage
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REPLACING
MICROSOFT
WITH LINUX?
Surprisingly, since Linux’s stronghold has always been in the data centre, there remains in the market the misnomer that adopting OSS is principally about replacing Microsoft with Linux on the desktop. Linux on the desktop rarely ticks all the boxes for business productivity users and, for most, a migration to Linux would be a high visibility and catastrophic failure.
Nor is it for a file-and-print server that supports Windows clients running Microsoft Office; that’s what Windows servers do best. However, as a file server supporting Linux workstations, or for web serving, or underpinning mission-critical tier-1 applications such as SAP, Linux makes a very strong business case indeed. And in the right environments, Open Source technologies such as Drupal, MongoDB, Nagios, Puppet and many others, are the right tool for the job.
THE RIGHT LINUX STRATEGY
By introducing a dual- or multi-sourcing strategy and taking this pragmatic and objective approach to identifying targets and adopting them against best practice principles and
methodologies, Linux and OSS can be integrated into an environment in the right capacity and in a way which leverages its benefits without introducing risk and complexity.
Reduce costs Enhance quality Improve flexibility and agility
VIRTUALISATION:
FINDING THE RIGHT TOOL
FOR THE JOB
These same principles can be applied to virtualisation. We all understand the benefits of virtualisation; lower capital and operational expenditure, more rapid provisioning and recovery, higher availability and improved business continuity are amongst the most compelling. But until recently there has been little choice available.
VMware, as market leader, was the only real option and with that position came an imbalance of power between vendor and user; and that’s not good for anyone. Competition drives prices towards equilibrium and ensures suppliers are highly attuned to market demand. It not only provides a choice of vendors but also a choice of functionality appropriate to your technical and operational requirements with commensurate pricing.
Enterprise virtualisation products based on the KVM and Xen hypervisors provide organisations with a choice of vendors besides the proprietary VMware and Hyper-V. They are open source, lower cost and in many cases perfectly fit for purpose. The key is once again, choosing the right tool for the job.
VMWARE VS RHEV
VMware is a very strong technology and has certain maturity and functionality advantages over KVM or Xen based alternatives, but that is mirrored in the price. For many IT managers RHEV, for example, provides all the functionality they need with top benchmarks for performance and scalability for Windows and Linux workloads but with a much lower TCO and no lock-in.
So as with OSS selection above, get choice by adopting a dual-sourcing strategy and then assess the right tool for the job based on the workload requirements, the capability of the tool and the associated benefits. Sometimes VMware will be right and for others you will save money with the KVM or Xen alternatives.
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HOW DOES CLOUD FIT IN?
Cloud, whilst conceptually different, shares synonymity with the choices above. In the same way that you have the choice, for example, to implement Microsoft or Linux, VMware or RHEV, you can choose public or private cloud. But, as articulated above, real choice comes from having both and then deciding which is the right tool for the job in particular instances.
PUBLIC CLOUD VS
PRIVATE CLOUD
Private cloud will require you to re-evaluate decisions about existing resources, but when it is done right, it can have a positive impact on your business. It leaves you in control and mitigates the risks associated with public cloud including governance and security. But this model is criticised because you still have to buy build and manage them yourself.
Public cloud on the other hand relieves you of the management overhead and capital expenditure whilst providing the benefits associated with true on-demand and pay-per-use business models.
HYBRID CLOUD
The dual-source parallel here is hybrid cloud. It is the composition of both private and public that remain unique entities but are bound together, offering the best of both worlds. Hybrid cloud provides the flexibility of in house applications with the fault tolerance and scalability of cloud based services. By utilising hybrid cloud architecture, you are able to select the right tool for the job according to the nature of the workload. For example, development and test workloads may be started in public cloud and then brought back in house for production.
But as with the integration of Linux and OSS into a heterogeneous environment, applying best practice is critical to the success of your hybrid cloud. Self-service provisioning, resource scaling, and shifting workloads within and among cloud resource pools are only effective if managed in a highly automated fashion.
Standardised your operating
environment
Employed tools that provide a unified way of managing, monitoring and automating cloud activities
Implemented mature operational processes and
procedures that maintain quality and agility management, you need to ensure you have:
THE BOTTOM LINE
Once you’ve assessed the right tool for the job based on requirements, capabilities, targets and best practice principles and methodologies, Linux and OSS can be integrated into an environment in the right capacity and in a way which leverages its benefits without introducing risk and
complexity. Having and making choices in this way can reduce costs, enhance quality and improve flexibility and agility.
