How Open Source Stacks Up – By Joe McKendrick
The following article was published in Database Trends and Applications Magazine
as well as on their online version:
For a number of years, there has been a great deal of momentum behind Linux, the
open source operating system. Now open source is proliferating up the stack, to
the database level, to middleware, to development tools, and to applications
themselves. Companies are increasingly moving to mixed stacks, which comprise
the best open source and commercial solutions, depending on business
requirements.
For example, ETAI, a leading provider of technical information for the
automotive, manufacturing and retail industries, uses a mixed stack that
includes open source software, but proprietary products as well. Philippe Bobo,
director of software and information systems at ETAI, told DBTA that this was
necessary because the company works with a variety of database formats,
including MySQL, DB2/ 400, Access, SQL Server, Oracle, Excel, and XML.
While there are a wide variety of open source solutions emerging in all parts of
the stack, a new survey conducted for the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG)
by Unisphere Research found that most open source applications are still being
deployed to support peripheral functions, versus core mission critical
enterprise applications.
While companies are receptive to the concept of open source software its stigma
of being unsupported ‘freeware’ evaporated some time ago many IT managers still
crave the guaranteed support and robustness that commercial grade products
promise. For open source databases, for example, “the greatest challenge is
meeting the ‘three Rs’: reliability, reliability, reliability,’ said Eugene
Ciuranae, director of systems infrastructure for Leap Frog, a major toy
manufacturer. Clustering, grid, and other forms of replication aren’t as mature
in open source databases. Their reliability is still relatively low when
compared against the major commercial vendors. Even with the increasing
reliability of many open source offerings, there’s another obstacle simply
cutting through commercial vendor hype, or finding the time to test various
products. For example, Ciuranae pointed out that the market is not fully
educated yet when it comes to open source middleware options. The open source
middleware pieces are in most cases more robust than commercial offerings
because they are engineered toward truly embracing heterogeneous systems, he
said. Unfortunately, many enterprise people are too afraid to go open source, or
the company’s policy doesn’t allow it, or the architects are receiving only
partial information from their entrenched vendors, and have no time or means of
learning about other options.’
Caution Still Advised
While open source software up and down the technology stack offers many
advantages, both experts and end users advise caution, and weighing the
advantages of going open source versus sticking with a commercial brand. In
fact, 54 percent of 226 executives and professionals responding to the IOUG
survey said one of the greatest limitations to open source was that it lacked
the robust enterprise support that many commercial packages have. Another 47
percent added that they are concerned that many open source packages do not
offer 24×7 support, while 35 percent question the security such software offers.
End-users agreed that support is still a sticking point for open source
solutions. While Rich Moraski, director of knowledge engineering for RealOps,
finds there are ‘fewer and fewer issues all the time’ with open source
solutions, support still remains the largest drawback. To some extent, ‘you get
what you pay for’ is relevant here, he told DBTA. That said, online forums are
typically regularly monitored by knowledgeable people who can either point out
what you’re doing wrong, or identify the issue as something in the process of
being corrected. Michael Weisel, CTO at
Gold Lasso, an
email marketing company, agreed that
there is less support with open source products, and that while it is available
out in the community, companies need to be proactive in going out to find
answers to issues. ‘It is important for us to make sure to keep up with systems,
grow and remain up to date within the open source arena so that a company can
keep making their product better,’ he told DBTA. ‘Gold
Lasso is constantly researching limitations and bugs, which is more of a
challenge than using another type of product. At other companies, such as
Microsoft or Oracle, if someone finds weakness, a patch is put out. Open source
has a community, and solutions are available, but you have to search for the
answer. Twenty-four percent of the IOUG survey respondents also expressed
concern about the availability of skills to build, manage, and use open source
solutions, a sentiment echoed across the industry. Seth Hishmeh, co-founder and
chief operating officer for USAS Technologies, which runs both MySQL and
Microsoft SQL Server within its data center, told DBTA that open source skills
might be difficult to find. ‘In some cases, it may still be more beneficial for
companies to use products such as Microsoft SQL Server it may be easier for them
to find Microsoft developers.
For less technical users, it may be better to utilize more well known
applications such as Crystal Reports, and to have a central company to contact
for support issues.’ ‘The biggest challenge is finding people that know the open
source database. Many will know Microsoft or another major database,’ agreed
Weisel. Overall, the IOUG survey uncovered a mixed picture with open source
adoption. The survey found that open source is prevalent at many levels of the
enterprise, and most organizations intend to increase their use of open source
over the coming year. In fact, the percentage of enterprises running a majority
of their applications on open source infrastructure is up from early 2006, the
first time this question was asked in an IOUG survey. At that time, nine percent
ran most applications on open source, compared to 13 percent at present. Leading
types of open source products include Web servers such as Apache (adopted by 60
percent), operating systems such as Linux (58 percent), application servers
such as JBoss and Tomcat (45 percent), and databases such as MySQL and
PostgreSQL (35 percent). The IOUG survey also found that open source tools and
platforms are also being adopted to aid IT departments in developing and
managing data center environments. For example, 30 percent of companies use open
source development tools such as Eclipse and NetBeans. Another 21 percent are
adopting open source frameworks, and 13 percent are using open source
management environments.
Adoption not Deep
ETAI, which needs to process and manage data in a variety of formats, turned to
an open source data integration solution Talend Open Studio to address handling
disparate open source and proprietary databases and files. ‘At ETAI, our
business consists of producing and selling data,’ Bobo explained. For example,
in the automotive industry, ETAI collects raw data from suppliers vehicles and
parts manufacturers consolidates and reconciles this data, and sells
applications based on the thus created technical database. Each time a new
version of a database product is released over a hundred times a year all of the
repositories need to be processed, which is very time consuming and always
presents data quality challenges.’ However, adoption of these solutions
typically does not run deep, the IOUG survey also found. In most cases, fewer
than 10 percent of enterprise application portfolios are supported or interact
with open source systems. Leap Frog’s Ciuranae concurred, noting that in the
database arena for example, Oracle remains the database to go to for mission-
critical systems. Open source databases are being adopted for non mission
critical, non transactional operations. Leap Frog, for example, uses MySQL for
some caching functions but not for business sensitive data.’ Still, there are
critical areas where open source adoption is well suited, such as projects that
may not have required funding. ‘Open source databases are a great resource for
new projects or ideas that require information technology infrastructure at very
low cost,’ Oscar Zamora, senior database administrator for Global Resource
Systems, told DBTA. ‘Many new companies that have a low budget will tend to use
an open source database to accomplish a core solution for its businesses. It can
be used for URL tracking, content management, storing redirect statistics and
reporting.’ Open source approaches lower a barrier to entry for companies that
are just getting established. Gold Lasso’s
Weisel told DBTA that ‘from the very
beginning, Gold Lasso started to use open
source, and migrated their existing programs to PostgreSQL for mission critical
application as well as to MySQL. We did this to avoid paying big license fees.
It seemed to be the only way to do business without raising huge amounts of
money first.’
Growing Use
The more a company relies on one open source part of the stack, the more likely
it will also be moving to open source for other functions up and down the stack.
LAMP [Linux Apache MySQL Perl/ Python/PHP] stack solutions are widely used with
open source databases,’ he observed. ‘It is common to see a Linux server running
Apache Web server and a MySQL instance, to track and deliver dynamic content.’
Ross Turk, community manager for SourceForge.net, agreed that there is a strong
connection across the technology stack between various open source solutions.
The SourceForge.net project database ‘is bursting with technology built upon
open source database engines, with just over 10,000 projects that specify a
requirement for either MySQL or PostgreSQL,’ he told DBTA. These two databases
have unquestionably established themselves as best of breed choices to support
open source applications.’ He added that ‘many open source Java projects make
heavy use of Hibernate, an ORM solution, or rely on JBoss, Tomcat, or a
combination of the two.’ The IOUG survey found a strong correlation between
adoption of open source databases or middleware and adoption in other parts of
the enterprise. For example, those companies with open source databases (such as
MySQL or PostgreSQL) were more likely to be running open source OSs such as
Linux (72 percent versus 60 percent for the general survey group) and more
likely to be running an open source application server such as JBoss or Tomcat
(72 percent versus 45 percent overall). The survey even found that open source
database sites are much more likely to be receptive to open source desktop
applications such as OpenOffice (23 percent versus 13 percent).
The correlation also applies to open source middleware or application server
adoption. Those companies with open source middleware solutions (such as JBoss)
were also more likely to be running open source at the OS level (73 percent
versus 58 percent) and using open source development tools such as Eclipse (51
percent versus 30 percent).
For some companies, the mix of open source solutions has delivered performance
gains as well. For example, Journyx, a provider of online time and expense
tracking solutions, has been running 200 customer accounts on PostgreSQL since
1999 without so much as a hiccup. ‘We have never had any downtime related to
bugs in this system,’ Curt Finch, CEO of Journyx, told DBTA.
Journyx has extended its operations with a range of open source solutions. ‘ All
of our software is written in Python, an open source language, and runs on
Apache, an open source Web server,’ Finch related. ‘We have the full support of
Red Hat and IBM for the OS and hardware respectively for our SaaS setup. Many
businesses run their critical payroll, billing and project accounting
functions through our system, and we are committed to providing a stable
platform. We couldn’t do this nearly as easily without open source technologies
that are mostly virus free and relatively but never completely immune to
security attacks.’ Finch added, ‘Microsoft platforms are ill-suited to a high
availability SaaS data center environment.’ Many products are now bundling a
range of open source solutions together into a single package, SourceForge’s
Turk observes. ‘A good example of enterprise software that relies on open source
middleware and database engines is Hyperic HQ, a systems management and
monitoring suite, which comes bundled with PostgreSQL, Tomcat, and JBoss.
OrangeHRM, an HR information system, and Zimbra, an enterprise messaging and
collaboration suite, rely on MySQL. And, of course, there are many examples of
enterprise software that support both open source and proprietary database
solutions, such as Pentaho, a business intelligence platform, and OpenBravo, a
Web-based ERP. Also, Jasper Reports, a very well established reporting
framework, plays nicely with both open source and proprietary databases through
Hibernate.’
