Survey: Cloud Native Technologies Driving Open Source Software Adoption
A survey of 433 IT professionals published this week by OpenLogic, an arm of Perforce, finds that 95% are using open source software, with 40% using cloud and container technologies.
Among those IT professionals, 59% are using Docker, while 39% are using Kubernetes, the survey finds.
More than a quarter (26%) report that usage of open source software increased substantially in the last year.
Not surprisingly, more than half (53%) identified reducing costs as the primary reason for using open source software, followed by a third (33%) looking to reduce vendor lock-in came in second (32.86%) and adhering to open standards and interoperability (28%).
The biggest challenges IT leaders encounter when adopting open source software are not enough personnel (57%), lack of skills, experience and proficiency (54%) and lack of high-level, real-time technical support (52%). Only 31% have experts for the different open source technologies they have deployed. A total of 37% contribute to open source projects and organizations, with 33% developing new open source software in public git repositories.
Matthew Weier O’Phinney, a principal product manager at OpenLogic, said there is simply not enough IT expertise available for organizations to implement a wider range of open source technologies. Half (50%) are addressing this issue with training, while nearly a third (31%) hire external contractors and consultants, and a quarter (25%) partner with a third-party vendor.
This issue is especially acute when it comes to implementing Big Data platforms. Nearly half (47%) are not confident in the administration and management of their Big Data stacks. Top challenges include data integration from multiple sources (59%), data quality and governance (41%), scalability and performance (38%), security and compliance (35%) and skills gaps and expertise (35%).
Regular maintenance and updates (49%), enhanced monitoring and alerts (46%), seeking help from the open source community (41%), technical support from commercial providers (32%) and automated troubleshooting (30%).
A full 44% are also relying on some instance of a proprietary implementation of open source software, primarily because of the professional support and maintenance provided, followed by additional features and customization (25%) and compliance/certification (24%).
The survey identifies keeping up with updates and patches (64%), meeting security and compliance policies (60%), maintaining end of life (EOL) versions (59%) and installation, configuration and upgrade issues (57%) as the biggest challenges organizations face when deploying and maintaining open source software.
Many organizations are maintaining implementations of EOL software based on open-source software. For example, over a third (41%) of respondents are using either CentOS EOL or AngularJS EOL software. A total of 41% of those respondents noted they have also failed a compliance audit in the last year. A full 84% are required to meet either external or internal compliance policies, but only 35% have open source security, compliance or governance policies. On the plus side, 59% run security scans to identify vulnerabilities in open source packages.
While open source software provides an attractive alternative to proprietary alternatives, organizations need to be realistic about what is required to deploy and maintain open source software, said Weier O’Phinney. Whether they develop internal expertise or rely on external service providers, open source software does come with some inherent costs that organizations need to consider, he added.
Regardless of how organizations invest in open source software, the one thing that is certain is that in the months and years ahead, there is going to be a lot more of it.
