Open Source Applications in the Cloud is a Technology Storm
The vendors own and operate the physical infrastructure including the servers and the communication bandwidth. On top of this infrastructure the vendor or the VAR installs operating systems and databases. Then on top of this the VAR installs open source business applications. The Customer operates their business on this platform by accessing it over the internet, with the normal security protocols in place.
The cloud by itself is a great move forward for computing. It’s radically more efficient, greener, and less expensive than everyone running their own little server farm. And open source software by itself is also fine, especially for the lower levels of software like operating systems and databases. But when you put open source business applications on top of the cloud, the best aspects of both are lost and you end up with a storm. Let’s take a look.
The cloud offers businesses a way to pay for utility computing. When they need and use more power, bandwidth, disc space, they pay for it. But just as demand spikes it can also drop. A retail chain may have huge needs in December and January, but much less in July and August. Why buy and maintain a computing infrastructure to handle the Christmas rush when the other 10 months of the year you utilize 20% of your load capacity? It’s wasteful because you still have to pay the electric bill every month.
On the cloud this problem goes away. You pay for what you use by leveraging a common infrastructure. Open Source applications however have a different reason for being. They exist so that a business can adapt the base code of the system to meet their very specific needs. Open Source applications are about a custom computing environment. A company that uses open source business applications does not want to be hindered by a common code base – they want to do things their way. They don’t want to vote on enhancements with 10,000 other users of the software; they want to do the enhancements and own the enhancements.
So on the one hand you have a common computing environment, and on the other an uncommon, idiosyncratic computing environment. When you mix the two it’s like bringing humid, hot air up from the Gulf of Mexico and introducing it to cold, dry air from Canada. Folks from Oklahoma to the Dakotas can tell you how this works. It’s not good.
You can see the appeal of this idea from the VAR’s point of view. They can essentially run their own Software as a Service, SaaS, operation without actually writing a system. They will have many billable service hours as they customize and install the applications, and over the ensuing years they can collect a nice percentage for ongoing support. They do not have the headache of managing the infrastructure themselves, nor do they have any capital outlays. It’s SaaS on the cheap.
But how about from the customer’s POV? What’s in it for them? They may save a few bucks on software licensing, but they now have a system built by a small VAR that has been customized to the umpteenth degree. Where are they if the VAR moves on, goes out of business, how will they continue to support an application code base that they do not understand built on an platform they have no idea of how to manage? Can they find another VAR to assume responsibility for their system? How long will it take them to come up to speed, and at what price?
Bottom line is that the combination of open source business applications and a cloud computing environment takes the best arguments for each and, together, turns them into a huge negative. Customized business applications need long term ownership and if your business is counting on them then you should own them. But by trusting a VAR to set them up in the cloud you have handed over ownership to a third party.
On the other hand, a true SaaS vendor, whether it’s Helpstream, or saleforce.com, or SuccessFactors or NetSuite, takes complete responsibility for generating, debugging, maintaining and upgrading the code base. They install this code base on a cloud of their choosing and therefore they can offer you, the customer, the utility computing efficiencies of the cloud. With their flexible systems, they can also offer you the ability to add on additional functionality for your particular business model. But they own the code base, not you or your VAR. They have the long term support of the system in mind. Sure, SaaS companies are merged, acquired and they sometimes even go out of business, but they are an order of magnitude more stable and dependable than a VAR.
In the end, open source business applications on the cloud are just too risky; they have no true owner and in the end may literally become orphans. You can put your own applications on the cloud; you can buy software services on the cloud; but having a VAR customize open source applications and put them on the cloud is a tornado waiting to happen.
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