Open Source - war stories from the trenches

Dateline: - Information Week CTO Forum April 7, 2005

Linux and FOSS is in the business IT mainstream and dominates embedded appliances such as high-end DVD players and broad-band routers.

Dan Lieberman spoke this week at Information Week's Linux/FOSS meeting for CTO's at the Tel Aviv Sheraton. The 30' talk was well received by over 30 CTO's from leading Israeli technology firms. Dan's talk Open Source in the Trenches highlights common mistakes in executing Open Source projects and presents 3 case studies of client Open Source software development projects: a high performance Web application for a virtual community, a database migration from Microsoft SQL Server and extrusion prevention using a wirespeed Linux appliance.

Dan's talk helps clients answer these 3 key questions:

• Where do I go for support? Well, you have 3 options, support yourself (the best one if you can make the investment in training), go to a large global IT provider or take a small local consulting firm like us.
• How do I pick a vendor? Choosing a large global vendor like IBM or HP is not always the best choice - the talk gives the reasons.
• How do I pick a platform? Price is always a big factor; however, you should carefully consider your design alternatives in three dimensions of technology, license and fit for purpose before you pick a vendor and platform.

Also at the forum - Yoram Genat, IBM Linux evangelist spoke about licensing models, Haim Rottenberg, former Oracle CTO presented Linux in the data center and Benny Davidovich from Davidovich Bakeries - showed how they reduced their workstation cost of ownership by over 75% using Linux, remote desktop and terminal services.