Problem-solvers hunt open-source solutions

IDG News Service — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:04:33 -0700

Here at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, it seems as though each of the thousands of attendees is on mission.

William Hughey, an independent Linux and open source developer in Bainbridge Island, Wash., was here this week to explore his ideas about new applications for tablet PCs and to look at different hardware platforms on which to build camera software for laptops.

Hughey believes that open source applications are a key to the popularity of tablet PCs because open source can bring needed features and low-cost or free software. "On tablet PCs, I definitely see open source being behind them," he said. "Everyone sees the iPhone model, where you can sell your product to customers" for use on the device. "I see this for tablet PCs."

Adam Talbot, a Linux and Unix administrator with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in Livermore, Calif., came to LinuxWorld looking for the next generation of high-level Linux-based system monitoring software for his organization, which runs Linux, Windows and Wind River's embedded VxWorks operating system.

"I'm always looking for the next (big) thing" in monitoring applications, Talbot said. "If I can find a solution that beats all of our stuff, costs less and is more applicable to our environment, then that's what I'm looking for."

Talbot now uses OpManager from AdventNet Inc. after moving away four months ago from competing applications from the Nagios open-source project and GroundWork Open Source. While neither of those products had major shortcomings, Talbot wants something that offers more monitoring services for various operating systems, including SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol).

"We're always looking for more for less," Talbot said.

Paul Williams, a consultant with a small consulting business, Projects & Solutions in Stockton, Calif., was on the prowl for open-source and Linux products that could help his SMB customers boost their IT capabilities without spending more money. One of his prime businesses is serving small dental ofices, which often have important IT requirements related to costly high-tech dental equipment. Some customers use an open-source dental practice management application, OpenDental, from Open Dental Software in Salem, Ore., which integrates with OpenOffice and other applications.

"This niche works because small businesses like dental offices can't afford to have a full-time IT guy," Williams said. "They usually have five to 25 PCs in an office and they have to outsource it. Small businesses will spend $500 on a PC and think they're done with it."

It's not just hardware. Many of his dental office clients will buy the Microsoft Office suite for their employees, then never realize how few of the expensive suite's features they ever use, he said. "Companies don't realize how much it can cost them to have Microsoft Office, especially if they are using it lightly. They may use Microsoft Word or Outlook, but they may only use 10% of their capabillities. Why not use something that does what they need, for free?"

Williams was also looking for gateway appliance software to provide content filtering, antispam, antivirus and other protective services for clients' networks. Among the options were products from open-source network gateway vendor Untangle Inc.

"[With] some of these [major proprietary] vendors, you can't even get in the door for half or even one-tenth of the cost" of products from Untangle, he said. "That's an issue for the small business," which wants the same security features as large enterprises but can't afford them.

For his customers -- even the small ones -- open source virtualization is also becoming an important option, Williams said. It's not that small businesses want virtualization for added computing capabilities. Instead, they can use it for disaster recovery and redundancy by creating duplicate images of existing servers and workstations and maintaining them in the event of a sytem crash. An open-source application can cost less and take up a smaller IT footprint compared to larger corporate-sized applications from major virtualization vendors.

"I don't necessarily need these huge things or even the whole management infrastructure surrounding it," he said.

Aliota Sharma, the CEO of Technetra Inc., an IT consulting company in Saratoga, Calif., wanted an open-source backup application for her company. Technetra is now evaluating one product from Zmanda Inc. to replace other open source tools. "Zmanda is a pretty unique product because it is an open-source product, which gives us great flexibility," she said. "We're interested in having a Linux-based solution because our company runs on Linux."

Dan Kusnetzky, principal analyst with the Kusnetzky Group LLC in Osprey, Fla., said the varied needs of Linux and open-source users follow a trend of recent years.

"At least [with] the corporate executives that I've been speaking with, ...Linux is part of every discussion," Kusnetzky said. "That was exactly the trend that I expected. It took a combination of things to get here. The technology had to mature and the features and functions that people needed had to become a part of the environment."

Open source in the enterprise "needed to have enough success stories" so executives and IT leaders could see that others were enthusiastically using it and then feel comfortable with the technology, Kusnetzky said. "IT executives are very risk-averse. They want to keep things in control and they want to cut costs. So they have a tendency to add new things in the environment [such as Linux and open source] very carefully. Because once its there, it's going to be there forever."