Open Source Featured Article

With an eye on cost-saving technologies that appear to be drawing more and more attention in this slower economy, a Broomfield, Colorado-based company today reportedly is launching new support levels for open source software solutions.

 

Officials at OpenLogic say that among their new packages is a support level that remotely monitors the health of open source production stacks.

 

According to Kim Weins, senior vice president of products and marketing at OpenLogic, the effort is being fueled by demands from corporate users of open source software.

 

“As companies tighten their spending and shrink staff, they want a cost effective way to prevent downtime and respond to issues in their production environment,” Weins said. “We think our new proactive support package is the industry’s first package that allows enterprises to automatically monitor and get support on mission critical stacks of open source software.”

 

Specifically, OpenLogic is introducing what it calls “Proactive Support,” which combines remote monitoring of server infrastructure with proactive response by the company’s support organization to alerts and issues that arise.

 

Officials at OpenLogic’s say the proactive solution uses “Hyperic HQ” to monitor individual open source projects or entire open source stacks remotely. It also includes a quarterly health check by OpenLogic of a company’s production infrastructure, with recommendations for tuning the system, improving performance and planning for expansion.

 

With their flexibility, scalability and a growing number of developers who expand their possibilities, open source solutions often can offer companies savings both in costs and resources.

 

In this recession, especially, the concept of open source technologies are drawing special attention – as are what generally are called “telecom expense management” solutions.

 

As TMC President and Group Editor-in-Chief Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) writes here in a weekend blog entry that reviews TEM provider Spectrum Incorporated, some cost-saving technologies appear to be picking up market share and even growing – adding staff and services – in this slower economy.

 

Much of that is fueled by the fact that, while they’re tightening their belts, many companies still are seeking to increase their uses of broadband and wireless services.

 

“And if you think about it – with companies cutting travel budgets and utilizing technology to substitute for air and other forms of travel – it makes sense that broadband and telecom costs could increase while headcounts shrink,” Tehrani writes.

 

OpenLogic’s new solutions may well be another example of that phenomenon.

 

In addition to its “Proactive Support” offering, the company is rolling out “Problem Resolution Support” – in which OpenLogic helps enterprise customers with their use of open source – and “Consultative Support,” where OpenLogic consults with the customer to provide more detailed assistance.

 

For Weins, OpenLogic’s strength is in its experience.

 

“Because OpenLogic supports over 500 open source projects, we have the expertise to support complex hybrid-source environments that incorporate multiple open source projects along with proprietary software,” she said.