As the pandemic took hold, organisations were compelled to advance their digital transformation initiatives, and as a result, cloud adoption soared. As we put the worst of the pandemic behind us, businesses are set to continue exploring the technology with Gartner forecasting that spending on public cloud services will reach $482 billion in 2022 and that by 2026, it will exceed 45% of all enterprise IT spend, significantly up from less than 17% in 2021.
A growing trend in cloud computing is around open-source, with 77% of businesses reportedly increasing their use of the technology in 2021. When looking at the use of open-source technologies in the cloud specifically, proprietary cloud vendors often provide open solutions to varying degrees. Yet it is rare that these companies will fully open their own services, and so businesses don’t benefit from the range of advantages open-source can provide.
Open-source cloud solutions should be the first port of call for those wishing to advance their own cloud capabilities because it provides many benefits, including reduced vendor lock-in and improved security practices.
Avoiding vendor lock-in
If an organisation overwhelmingly relies on a single vendor or a cloud solution it can fall victim to vendor lock-in. This puts the company in a potentially difficult position because if a vendor increases its prices or breaks the continuity or quality of its service, businesses face a difficult decision – if they want to switch, they can only do so by incurring substantial costs or causing significant business disruption.
Vendor lock-in is especially dangerous for growing businesses because the unique solutions that made sense when they first started out often no longer work as their company grows.
A clear resolution is to rely on open-source as it can be modified and distributed freely which means the user cannot be tied down to one distributor. Businesses can simply switch solutions or adapt their current options as they scale up or down, depending on their current focuses and operations.
The business benefits of open-source
Once implemented, open-source cloud solutions have several business advantages. One of the most appealing advantages stems from financial benefits. If organisations adopt an open infrastructure, they don’t have to pay vendor license fees which can be a substantial cost that cuts into company overheads. Additionally, compared to proprietary software solutions, the cost of support and maintenance is dramatically reduced. Saving on central business costs frees up capital to be re-purposed into other areas of the business, such as R&D, business transformation and change, which can have a positive impact on innovation and productivity.
Another advantage is the rate of innovation, which greatly increases as a company explores open-source cloud solutions. Open-source is a hub for innovation because of its reliance on community collaboration and engagement. By sharing their knowledge and experience, communities can produce new resources and opportunities for the cloud and the businesses that rely upon it. This is especially valuable as business demands are becoming increasingly complex. With open-source, companies can develop their own solutions rather than trying to alter the one-size-fits-all applications of proprietary vendors. An open-source cloud solution can be far more adaptive, compatible and resilient to modern business needs.
Open-source enhances security
The ongoing shift towards cloud is naturally being accompanied by an increasing concern around cybersecurity. Over the past few years, we have seen larger cloud vendors hit with a number of security issues, so much so that the UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority began to increase its supervision of major cloud providers. While open-source code is not inherently safer than closed-source software, it can be immediately patched thanks to a broad community coverage.
For example, open infrastructures offer organisations full transparency as they can see the bare bones of any cloud service or software and understand the realities of its security. Developers can then have a greater sense of where potential breaches may occur and then build appropriate security measures into the foundations of the cloud. Further, community involvement translates to higher levels of vulnerability disclosures, which means they can usually be addressed and patched far quicker. This means that open-source cloud solutions can be both flexible and resilient to increasingly sophisticated and adaptive threats, greatly reducing the concerns developers may have around unknown vulnerabilities.
Open-source solutions offer a compelling and competitive alternative to proprietary vendors. Additionally, they drive innovation and permit substantial financial savings which can then be channeled into advancing other areas of the business, helping to meet the complex needs of the modern enterprise. In today’s world where reliance on technology is unavoidable, businesses should arm themselves with the most effective cloud infrastructures possible. For many, this will be built on open-source technologies.
