Tech trends | A path to savings

With more than 40 serversspread out at six sites and runningmultiple operating systems,the network infrastructure at HillAir Force Base was in dire need of consolidation.In about 11 months, the base movedfrom several hardware platforms ?some of which were proprietary? to standard x86systems, said Paul Smith,head of Red Hat Inc.'s governmentdivision. Movingto standard hardwaremade it possible for thebase to use open-source software acrossits technology infrastructure. The projectis an example of how open sourcecan be a part of larger efforts to reduceinformation technology costs."Saving money wasn't really aboutRed Hat," Smith said. The benefits tothe air base were substantial. Red Hathelped the organization transition toblades, achieve a smaller footprint,reduce its real estate costs and consolidateinto a single facility, he said. Bymoving to a standard platform, IT officialsat the base were able to realize savingsby being able to choose among severalmanufacturers.In addition to using open-source softwareand standard hardware, anotherstrategy agencies are using to savemoney is consolidating servers with virtualization,Smith said."What we've done, and mostly withother open-source components, is bundlethe virtualization into the operatingplatform," Smith said. "When you talkabout Red Hat and Linux, you have aglobal file system that enables storageconsolidation. You've got the virtualizationengine that is actually built into theplatform."Rather than bolting a virtualizationproduct onto a traditional operatingsystem, the open-source systems havethat capability already integrated.When agencies turn to open source, it isusually for several reasons, said Bill Vass,president of Sun Microsystems Inc.'s federalpractice. Agencies like the securityfeatures, speed of procurement and priceof open-source software.The cost savings start during thedevelopment and testing phase whenworking with open source. Agencies areable to start that process without buyinga support contract. With proprietaryproducts, it is illegal to use them duringdevelopment and testing without payingfor support.From that point, the amount of savingsdepends on where open source isinstalled on a network. In thedesktop/database realm, users can getabout 90 percent of the functionality for10 percent of the cost of proprietaryproducts, Vass said. With middleware, a50 percent savings is possible. And withoperating systems, a 20 percent savingswith open source is possible comparedwith proprietary products."It is a lot of money when you lookover all those budgets," Vass said. "Whenyou add to it that you can procure anddeploy it faster ? so you're not payingsystems integrators to sit around whileyou're waiting to go through procurement? that's even greater savings."Vass recommends agencies start withoperating systems when moving to opensource. Capable and powerful open-sourceoperating systems are availableand, with the right support model inplace, will cost agencies less than otheroperating systems.The second area to look at is virtualization.Agencies often see virtualizationas a way to save money, and open-sourcevirtualization products cost less thanproprietary ones, Vass said. Agencies areable to install a virtualization layer thatis open source and not affect any of theapplications. Avoiding application conversionsmeans huge savings. Popularopen-source virtualization productsinclude Sun xVM and Xen.Another area to focus in on is open storage, Vass said. "Insteadof buying big, expensive,proprietary storage platforms,you can get low-costhardware and operate thesame kind of features on anopen-source platform at amuch lower cost."For example, it's possibleto get 20T of open storagefor the same price as 2T ofproprietary storage. A combinationof open systemshardware running open-sourcesoftware is neededfor those savings. The setupcan be designed to act likeproprietary systems.Agencies are able to make that switchwithout having to change anything intheir infrastructure as far as applicationsgo.For open-source middleware, agenciesneed to evaluate where it makessense to install it. If their applicationsare already following open standards,it is easy to move to an open-sourcemiddleware product.Databases are another area in whichagencies can look for savings. Anopen-source offering such as MySQLfrom Sun is less expensive than proprietarydatabases, Vass said. MySQLis installed in large IT infrastructuresat places such as Google, Yahoo andFacebook, he said.Meanwhile, other open-source applicationsare available to help agenciesimprove their bottom lines. For example,Snort is an open-source networksystem for preventing and detectingintrusions.The technology is widely deployedacross military and civilian governmentagencies, said MikeGuiterman, director ofopen-source products atSourcefire Inc., a companyfounded by the originaldeveloper of Snort."With open source, therereally are no barriers to gettingit into your organization,"Guiterman said."From a pure open-sourceperspective, there are zerolicense and support costs.The other thing agencieslike is the open, transparentcode enables those users toverify that the productthey're using is actuallydelivering the protection it promises."Having open code also lets customerscustomize the software to fittheir specific needs."The open-source community's abilityto rapidly innovate and listen to thevoice of the user is key," Guitermansaid. "The interaction with the developersmeans projects can go aheadand innovate or morph into what thecustomer needs quickly."