Unixster

With the cloud computing wave poised to reach the world market in the next 12 to 18 months, open source software and coding techniques are about to hit the big time.

That’s because open source software and the methodologies that accompany it have already been proven to be the chosen route for the vast majority of companies aiming to capitalise on the cloud phenomenon.

For evidence of this, you need look no further than the route companies such as Amazon, Google and Rackspace have taken in building out the massive datacentres they plan to begin selling capacity on in the coming years.

Without fail in each of these examples, open source is either at the core or forms a vital component of what’s on offer. And as cloud computing becomes more a prominent topic, so open source will find greater traction in the market.

The reasons open source is a popular route are not difficult to find. Since the cloud computing players are extremely technically proficient, they have sufficient skill in-house to capitalise on the more open nature of open source – and in doing so, can build a far lower cost solution than what would be on offer from a proprietary technology.

These solutions’ open nature furthermore allow cloud providers to mould and form tools to their own needs, changing and adapting underlying technology rapidly so that extra performance can be eked out of a solution.

Incidentally, cloud companies using open source technologies gain the useful side-effect of adhering to the open standards that the majority of open source solutions subscribe to. This proves to be a great benefit down the line when it comes to integrating disparate line of business systems or solutions providing specific functionality to a business silo.

A number of companies are wondering when exactly cloud computing will hit South Africa, since the topic is becoming an important part of the planning most enterprises in the more developed US or European markets are doing today.

Because of the bandwidth limitations we face locally and despite the arrival of new undersea cables, cloud computing will take on a different form in South Africa to markets where bandwidth is ubiquitously available.

My personal belief is that South African companies will become involved with cloud computing from an internal perspective, building clouds that exist inside their datacentres, but function similarly to clouds located at service providers’ offsite datacentres.

It stands to reason that these customers will need to look at open source technologies just like their outsourced peers, since the level of scalability, customisability and control is just not there in the proprietary world.

For that reason I can’t see why open source won’t go from strength to strength locally over the coming years.

Fred Strauss is technical manager at Obsidian Systems.

It’s easier than ever for Linux users to avoid closed, proprietary applications and drivers. But life is complex, and there are still times when a Linux user’s choices are not as simple as FOSS/non-FOSS; for example, multimedia is a minefield of patented codecs, binary blobs, and DRM. So what’s a freedom-loving Penguinista to do?

Open source may have had a late start in the realm of enterprise virtualisation, but the meticulous and attentive development of this technology has led to better products in the long run. Not only is open source virtualisation now fully enterprise-ready, but it offers greater cost-savings and more flexibility that its proprietary counterparts.

What is virtualisation?
Virtualisation allows you to run multiple operating systems within a single physical machine. Traditionally, your firewall and mail server, for example, would be run on their own dedicated physical servers. However, with today’s processing power being as powerful and cheap as it is, some machines run at no more than about 10% utilisation, ultimately making the machines run at a waste of capacity.

Aside from this, the physical space needed to house these machines can be overwhelming, especially for smaller companies with limited space. Furthermore, the actual electricity used to run all these separate machines as well as their cooling, can be very expensive and demanding on corporate infrastructure.

With South African electricity limitations and power instability making such a negative impact on business, the idea of virtualisation is very attractive one. Virtualisation makes better use of your hardware, saves electricity costs, space and decreases your carbon footprint at the same time.

Virtualisation also provides increased availability and does not require any downtime. Many companies use a single operating system to install multiple applications on. This can cause all the applications to crash if one of them becomes unstable.

With virtualisation, there is a single physical machine with multiple contained operating systems each housing an application. This means that if one of the applications were to suddenly crash, none of the others will be affected.

Furthermore, if your mail server needs to be updated or your firewall has to undergo routine maintenance, the other applications and processes can still run as normal, and no downtime has to be experienced. This means that all business processes can enjoy a seamless and uninterrupted flow at any time of the day.

The open source benefit
With open source virtualisation, you can do pretty much anything you can do with commercial products, but with added advantages.

The nature of the open source community means that there are hundreds of eyes that are continually assessing existing programs and bug-fixing is done properly within minimal time. Open source products are improved on an ongoing basis, providing outstanding quality from the start. The large number of developers working on open source virtualisation has not only allowed it to successfully catch up with proprietary virtualisation, but it is now surpassing it in features and performance – and all of this is available at a lesser cost.

A possible drawback of using proprietary virtualisation is that the virtual machines could be stored in a format that is not compatible with other software. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to switch to another virtualisation technology in the future. Virtualisation is currently a very innovative and competitive market, and vendor-lock in should be avoided.

Open source virtualisation is undoubtedly a technology that has proven itself. Not only do a healthy number of our customers currently run successful virtual environments, but we are using it ourselves and getting very good performance out of less hardware.

Virtualisation as a concept has far too many advantages to be ignored, especially in economic times when operational costs are being cut dramatically. Add the open source benefits that come with non-proprietary products, and the cost-saving alone make a very compelling argument.

Fred Strauss is technical manager at enterprise open source specialist Obsidian Systems.