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5th SARMAF Seminar Non Proprietary (Open Source) VS Proprietary Software. Agenda. Table of Contents. What’s Driving the Change Open Source & Proprietary Software Closing. Objectives. Provide a glimpse of drivers of change causing the new landscape from my experience
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5th SARMAF Seminar Non Proprietary (Open Source) VS Proprietary Software
Agenda Table of Contents What’s Driving the Change Open Source & Proprietary Software Closing
Objectives • Provide a glimpse of drivers of change causing the new landscape from my experience • Technological and content drivers • Cultural, ethical and legislative factors • Economical drivers – Cost effective solution
Origin of Recorded Information – Theory of Evolution Paper Digital Tablets WWW Special Libraries Association XML HTML pdf Docbase
The Current Situation • Technological and Content Explosion • 700 – 2,400 terabytes – annual worldwide production of new information • Each terabyte is equivalent of a million ordinary books • One-fifth of the information can be found in books, newspapers, periodicals, etc. • The rest – OFFICE DOCUMENTS! • 200% - growth rate of unstructured information • 44 – 100 billion – growth rate of storage market, driven by data, video, and e-business
Enterprise Content Management • Only 20% of corporate data is structured • The average knowledge worker spend 40% of time looking for info • Up to 70% of content is recreated rather than re-used • Turn unstructured data into a information asset. Marketing materials Manuals Meeting minutes Structured Data (ERP) 20% Emails & Attachments Contracts Forms PDFs Images Paper Rich Media Documents Unstructured Data (ECM) 80% Web Pages Product Data Audio & Video Spreadsheets Policies / Procedures Instant Messages
Arthur Andersen’s Houston Branch Office “…perhaps nothing can bring a company down with such amazing speed as misconduct.” M. Ingerbretsen, Why Companies Fail: The 10 Big Reasons Businesses Crumble, and How to Keep Yours Strong and Solid. (2003)
Post-Enron Legislative Factors - Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 Criminalizes records management practices misconduct • Increases sanctions for improper document management - falsifying - altering - concealing - destroying • Maximum sentence of 20 years • Applies to documents regarding all matters under U.S. government jurisdiction
Post 9/11 Legislative Factors – USA Patriot Act Enhances Counter-terrorism efforts • Allows use of surveillance methods against crimes of • terror • Permits “roving wiretap” to a particular suspect, • rather than a particular device • Conduct investigation without tipping of terrorists • Obtain business records in national security cases • Facilitates information sharing and cooperation among government agencies • Updated the law to reflect new technologies and threats • Increased penalties for those who commit terrorist • crimes.
Paradigm Shift…as society is changing, records management is fundamentally the same. • A Records Management program still has the same fundamental building blocks: • Policy • Retention Schedules • Vital Records Program • Disaster Recovery Program • Training/Education Program • Awareness that the Records Management profession is a mix of risk-management function as well as an information management profession. • New industry terms being coined: • Assured Records Management • Information Lifecycle Management • Strategic Information Management
A Necessary Cultural and Paradigm Shifts - Collaboration and Partnerships with Core Enablers and Key Stakeholders… Business Areas Core Enablers • Corporate Governance and Policy • Program Implementation • Compliance and Risk Management • Awareness and Training • Standardization • Legal • Audit • Software Development Corporate Security/Risk Management Legal and Compliance Records Management Program Information Technology Knowledge Management
Capability/Skills Direction Average Staff Size* Capability/Skills Direction** 2-15 • Strategic Records Management Services • enterprise wide policy, retention schedules and governance 2-11 • Advisory Services • Information Classification (taxonomy/metadata) • RM functionality, system upgrades and data migration 2-20 • Operations - Compliance • Program audit • Disposal management 12.5-30 • Operations - Administrative • Lab notebook management, scanning/indexing, retrieval • Paper archive and public release • IT support for RM software * External Peer Benchmark Study ** My opinion
Four Records Management Program Principles Policy Governance • All records are company assets • Actionable corporate policies with clear divisional implementation directives and SOP’s • All divisions will review records at least annually according to approved retention schedules • Implement an audit process to ensure alignment with the program • Structure that will support effective integration across the enterprise while allowing flexibility to meet unique divisional and country/region specific needs • Policies and processes must ensure accountability within the operating divisions • A comprehensive education, review, and audit process implemented at multiple levels • A process for capturing lessons learned and best practices Information Technology • All new or modified systems will incorporate RM requirements and functionality • Policies must include a section for data classification and access control, allowing for flexibility to change security levels over time • Each division will remain the owner of the data in any system Standards • All divisions will adopt archiving practices consistent with program requirements • All divisions will participate in the development and consistent implementation of data, metadata, and other similar standards for identifying, storing, and managing information
Elements and Skills Needed in the New Landscape • Consulting skills to serve other corporate professionals as recognized and respected experts • Better understanding of the business in which the company is involved. • Conduct program audits with a constructive and helpful attitude, not an accusatory one. • Participate and engage “communities of practice” in solving problems. • Develop more relevant and responsive services oriented to need of the company. • Developing criteria for measuring information quality. • Understanding of systems and technologies. • Understanding of human behavior on how records are created and share information
Technology Platforms managing digital assets are available • Proprietary (OpenText, IBM, EMC, etc) • FOSS (Alfresco, etc)
What is proprietary software? • Proprietary software • Developed by closed group/ company • Sold to clients – per user license • May not distribute, copy or modify • No access to source code • 15 – 20% maintenance fee to access patches, support
What is Open Source Software • So what is it? • Developed by group of geographically distributed developers, mostly for no pay • Usually free of licensing cost • Can be copied, modified, redistributed, incorporated in other OSS apps freely
What is Open Source Software • Is it free? • Of licensing costs? Mostly, yes, but it needn’t be • Some vendors charge for distributing it (like Redhat Linux) • Support, training, documentation usually come at a price
What is Open Source Software • Is it Linux? Is it Ubuntu? • Linux is one of many 10’s of 1000’s OSS apps • On sourceforge.net, there are 65,000 apps • Is OSS competing with Microsoft • Yes, but not as its reason for existence • Some OSS apps compete in the same space as MS – Openoffice, Linux, Apache HTTP Server, J2EE app servers etc
Why are organisations using OSS • Cost • TCO of OSS often lower than proprietary • Use of open standards allows broader interoperability • Stability & security of OSS often greater than proprietary software • No vendor lock-in – can swap out OSS with greater ease • Platform independence • Access to source • Ability to support internally
Which governments are using OSS? • Some 170 governments (local and national), including 20 of the United States have formal OSS policies • South Africa has formalised its OSS position (www.oss.gov.za)
What is SA doing? • Adopting a policy in which: • Discrimination & prejudice will be avoided. Choices made based on merit • OSS & proprietary software given equal opportunity • OSS preferable where the direct advantages & disadvantages of OSS & PS are equally strong, & where circumstances • Open standards will be a prerequisite for all software development
What is SA doing? • Adopting a policy in which: • Government will encourage partnerships within the wider public sector, the private sector, civil society, the rest of Africa & globally to foster the utilisation of OSS • SITA will provide leadership & support for Government institutions • OSS model will be adopted for development of Government systems & such systems will be developed to run on OSS platforms.
What is SA doing? • Gov is already largest user of OSS in SA • Northern Cape largest provincial user of OSS • Western Cape utilising OSS widely • Various gov departments evaluating or using OSS
What is SA doing? • Recent launch of Impi Linux – SA own Linux distribution based on Debian & distributed in multiple languages • Project Meraka – CSIR open source resource centre – support of Dept Science & Tech & Shuttleworth foundation • HP chooses open-source software for its Mogalakwena I-Community in the Limpopo province
Open Source in the ECM space • Taken serious now by Gartner and other analyst • Part of the evolution of FOSS to the Business Application layer • Already successfully implemented in some large enterprises ie Adobe etc.
Open source vs proprietary All software acquisition is risky. Always consider: • Acquisition cost - initial and ongoing • Training costs - how much re-training is needed? • Support costs - in-house or third party? • Interoperability - what else does it need to work with? • Reliability and security - look at track record …regardless of whether it is open source or proprietary. Competing solutions should be evaluated on the same criteria.
Open source pros • A ready made community • Community driven = community serving • No licence costs • No vendor lock in • Infinitely customizable • Investment is typically in training staff rather than a third party - staff development!
Open source cons • Fear of no-one to blame • No vendor guarantees • Project folding is more common than vendor folding • Open source may be incompatible with other deployed software • Proprietary software is often more feature rich • Documentation quality is variable
Be careful .... Do Interface Standards Compress Pricing? Hyundai & Lamborghini both support same “interface standard” for layout of driver controls (steering wheel, gas, brake, clutch, gearshift, turn signal, speedometer, tach) Hyundai has far greater financial muscle and low cost producer status versus Lamborghini. “Interface standard” is not “implementation standard” (horsepower, body styling, sound system, seat fabric, …) 2006 Lamborghini Murcielago. $279,000 1988 Hyundai Excel, $975 2006 Lamborghini Murcielago. $279,000 1988 Hyundai Excel, $975
ECM applications available in themarket Proprietary software Open Text (Hummingbird and Livelink were merged recently, Hummingbird Enterprise™ Rebranded to Livelink ECM – eDOCS™) IBM Content Manager (IBM has acquired Filenet, but do not know about their plans wrt the two products) Documentum Microsoft (Share point) Vignette PaperTrail Trim Collaborator More…. OSS Alfresco Categories: CMS ECM Technologies: Java JDBC MySQL Tomcat Licenses: GPL Knowledge Tree Categories: ECM Technologies: Java Licenses: Eclipse Public Licenses: LGPL Nuxeo Categories: CMS ECM Technologies: Apache HTTP Server MySQL PHP Licenses: GPL3 Brazilian development tool More ….
Key Challenges in OSS Maturity of OSS ECM in RSA and Skills availability National Internally Vendors (Local) Change management Departmental (ECM is not IT responsibility but a business imperative and supported by IT) Current vendors (Fear factor) Vendor Support post implementation SITA Capacity and logistics
Experience Strategic Partner the dme Department of Transport Western Cape Department of Environment and Tourism Department of Health Western Cape Department of Minerals and Energy
Closing • Great opportunity for people in information management profession and in particular records management to: • advance the most senior levels • Make a positive difference in their organization in the way information, records and knowledge is managed. • Go from Records and Information Management professional to a Strategic Information Management professional … the platform is there.
Thank You DankieSiyabongaKe a lebohaSiyathokoza Rudie Bronkhorst E-mail: rbronkhorst@datacentrix.co.za Tel: +27 (11) 461 2081 Web: www.datacentrix.co.za