Integrated Infrastructure Blog

Open Source Software Powers the Biggest Physics Project in History

Today Progress Software announced that the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN*) is using Progress® FUSE™, to run its operational grid activities of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) re-launch which happened this month. FUSE is an open source product line based on several Apache projects for which IONA (acquired by Progress in June 2008) provided leadership and Progress today continues to be a significant contributor. There are many skeptics that believe open source software isn’t meant for large-scale projects but CERN has proven that wrong. Not only has FUSE will underpin all grid monitoring systems used in CERN’s quest to find the Higgs Boson—known as 'The God Particle', but CERN welcomes the opportunity to contribute back to the open source project and deploy it freely across all their sites.

James Casey, Technical Architect at CERN, sites “We needed to find a partner that could help us bring agility and reliability to our IT infrastructure.” He added, “We have a pipeline of projects that we need to deliver over the coming years, so this first step lays the foundation for change.”

In addition to using FUSE, CERN also deployed Progress® SonicMQ® to form the communications backbone of its Technical Infrastructure Monitoring (TIM) system, designed to alert researchers in the event of an emergency. The use of open and “closed” source software creates a true open integration environment that re-enforces the fact that every organization has the power to choose the solutions that best fit their integrated infrastructure requirements.

RE: The wrong marketing for open source

Matt Asay makes a good point in his article on open source marketing, that people generally choose to use open source software because it is cost effective, not because it is “flexible”.

Put another way, “free as in beer” trumps “free as in speech” as a motivator for people making the choice to use open source. I think that is obvious. On the other hand, I think that it is so obvious that the premise of the article that open source should be marketed on the basis of low cost over freedom of choice is wrong. I think the market widely assumes that open source is “free as in beer” so you get the benefit of that perception just by being open source in the first place.

That said, he does refer to the importance of “low cost utility.” It isn’t good enough that Linux or MySQL or ServiceMix ESB is open source, (i.e. perceived to be “free as in beer”). It also has to be good enough to be useful in helping someone solve a real problem. In other words, the beer has to be drinkable or doesn’t matter that it’s free.

We, Progress Software, are also seeing companies begin to recognize that adopting open source isn’t entirely free (as in beer). They will be more successful getting the utility from the software if they invest in developing the skills to use the software properly and have the backing of a company to support them in that effort. To take the beer analogy a bit further, (perhaps too far?), renting a mug is better than drinking the beer out of your hands.

From an open source marketing perspective, what we need to do is let people know that the beer tastes good and explain how much better the experience will be drinking it from a mug. We don’t need to spend a lot of time explaining why it’s a good thing that the beer is free.

Who’s in Charge of the Architecture? You Are.

In Replacing Large Applications – Who’s in Charge?, Kathy Harris at Gartner writes:

"Most of the organizations have no real architectural vision for their system. The result is that they are essentially allowing the vendor to establish their architecture. This may be ok in the long run, but for many organizations, it is a de facto decision rather than an active choice."

While many vendors have the expertise to make the right recommendations for their portion of a solution, things become much more complicated when you start integrating their applications with others. Complexity increases exponentially when you consider the changes being made by other departments, in other locations, and by your partners.

The complete picture can be daunting. Great enterprise architects understand that you don’t need an exact schematic of how infrastructure will evolve over the lifetime of the business. Rather, you need to take proactive steps to incorporate flexibility into your architecture. And the best way to do this is to partner with vendors that adopt Open Integration principles to ensure that your architecture can grow to support the business as it evolves.

If you’re concerned that your vendor is prescribing your architecture for you, consider these three Open Integration requirements:

1. Make sure your vendor supports open standards. This means that they support de facto standards as well as those specific to your industry. More importantly, they should also be involved in defining emerging standards, to ensure future compatibility. If your vendor supports open standards, you have a better chance of adapting to change.
2. Develop an open architecture. Look for solutions that are modular in nature and allow you to mix and match functionality to meet your needs, while only paying for what you use.
3. If possible, leverage open source. By using open source, you reduce your price of admission to mission-critical infrastructure. More importantly, you have direct access to the source code and those who wrote it.

Organizations need to take an active role in defining architecture. All three Open Integration principles allow you to actively choose what’s right for your business, instead of being at the mercy of others and hoping it will all work out in the long run.