An open question
Can open-source software help—or hinder—a manufacturer's IT operations?
By Malcolm Wheatley, senior contributing editor -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 3/1/2005 12:00:00 AM
When it was time to replace his company's primary network server, Joe Drouin, CIO of TRW Automotive, Livonia, Mich., took what many in his position might still consider a huge risk.
"I threw out a wild card to the team that was looking at the hardware refresh and said: 'I want you to tell me why we can't do Linux'," Drouin recalls.
The team determined that TRW could indeed do Linux, although Drouin now admits there were times during the changeover when he thought he had made a mistake. Ultimately, Drouin discovered that while Linux—and open-source software in general—offers a tremendous opportunity to reduce overall IT costs, it also can wreak organizational havoc if its deployment isn't managed properly. And a mismanaged deployment is a distinct possibility, given the current scarcity of IT professionals with advanced knowledge of open-source software.
The knowledge gap definitely was an issue at TRW, where nearly 900 workers at 14 manufacturing facilities now use a version of the MFG/PRO ERP package from QAD running on the Linux Advanced Server operating system (OS) distributed by Red Hat. The OS runs on a Dell server, and users tap into MFG/PRO via Intel-based Dell PCs linked by Red Hat's Cluster Manager. TRW also has two other open-source products—the Apache Web server and the Tomcat application server—on its network.
Drouin says this configuration has "delivered everything we expected, and the cost reductions have been better than expected," although he admits there was a point "about halfway through the conversion when we were close to throwing in the towel.
"We knew all of the components should work together," Drouin continues, "but we had no experience at actually making them work together."
And apparently, neither did the vendors that TRW initially turned to for help. "At first, none of the vendors we were dealing with could help us overcome all the configuration issues we came up with—particularly from the operating system point of view," he says.
Eventually, the problems were resolved, but it's safe to say that the supplier of TRW's previous server was very close to ringing up an unexpected sale.
A potential minefield
Some might say the problems TRW faced in deploying open-source software have diminished because the open-source movement has matured since TRW made the switch in 2003. But that doesn't mean companies should expect a move to open source to be trouble free.
Even though numerous vendors—including Red Hat; Novell; Hewlett-Packard (HP); IBM; and Sun Microsystems—offer various levels of support for open-source software, a company looking for that proverbial "one throat to choke" when things go wrong could be in trouble unless they are comfortable relying on the conventional source of open-source support: anonymous members of Internet newsgroups.
There are legal issues, as well, to consider when dealing with open-source software. For instance, the open-source movement has been shaken by widely publicized attempts of UNIX software vendor SCO to sue IBM and other major users of open-source software over what SCO claims are infringements of its intellectual property contained within Linux (see sidebar, p.48). Recommending to the board that a particular piece of commercial software be acquired involves no particular personal bravery; but for a time at least, CIOs urging their companies down the open-source route were putting more than just their personal credibility on the line.
Despite these issues, users are becoming more comfortable with the concept of open source.
"A few years ago, we were educating users and saying, 'Just because there isn't a license fee doesn't mean that it's free," says Dan Frye, VP of IBM's Linux Technology Center, Beaverton, Ore. "Now they are aware of the issues regarding total cost of ownership, and understand that they have to think about where support will come from, and how staff must be trained. It's more of a conversation than a lecture."
"As Linux has matured, offering more compatibility and performance, user understanding also has matured," agrees Houston-based Jeffrey Wade, HP's worldwide Linux marketing manager. "Not so long ago, Linux was typically restricted to the edge of the corporate network: firewalls, domain name servers, and print servers. It's now moving inward, becoming the platform on which companies run their businesses."
Open source in manufacturing
Although some of the more widely publicized implementations of open source have been outside of manufacturing—airline reservation company SABRE, for example, attributes an 80-percent reduction in like-for-like operating costs to a decision to switch to open source—manufacturers are catching up fast.
"Linux is very attractive to UNIX users, and UNIX is very prevalent in manufacturing industries," says Wade. "Linux offers manufacturers a tremendous opportunity to move from proprietary, RISC-based hardware to industry-standard hardware, and at the same time retain a UNIX-like experience."
Drouin still calls TRW's move to Linux "a leap of faith," even if it was supported by a compelling business case. When he asked his team to investigate the Linux option, Drouin knew a change of servers was overdue, but he wasn't prepared to move to Linux unless it made good business sense.
"We were running on an eight-year-old server that was not only expensive to begin with, but on which we were paying a maintenance premium because it was elderly," he says. "I could see that [a move to Linux] was possible, but I wasn't yet committed. If the team had come back and said, 'No, we're two years away from being able to do this,' then I was prepared to sign the papers and buy another kit."
From both an operational and a financial perspective, a move to Linux "clearly made sense," Drouin says. "The costs were certainly an order of magnitude better than if we had just gone out and bought the latest and greatest machine."
On the other hand, the team hadn't been able to identify, much less talk to, comparable users who had successfully made the same switch, thus the leap of faith that ultimately was rewarded.
Based on its initial success in North America, TRW now expects to convert its worldwide IT operations to Linux, but that move will happen in stages, as various servers in other parts of the world reach retirement age. "We're not going to yank them ahead of time, but when the time comes for retirement, Linux will be the way we go," Drouin asserts.
High-profile support
Open source also is benefiting from the support of high-profile technology vendors like IBM and HP, both of which have embraced Linux despite their histories of selling commercial software that might be viewed as competitive products.
"We don't think of open source and commercial software as competing; we think of them as complementary," says IBM's Frye. "It comes down to a choice, based on customers' needs. The same set of choices will result in different outcomes for different customers—and it doesn't have to be an either-or decision. Sometimes the answer is a mixture."
The fact that there's a strong market for open-source consulting and customization services goes a long way toward explaining the sanguine attitude of these vendors. Open-source software can be readily obtained for free, but often, as TRW found, some consulting help in configuring it for a particular environment is very useful.
And that's not only true in the case of Linux obtained from HP and IBM. As a freely available download, the popular intrusion-detection application Snort is command line-driven. But users wanting features such as a Web-based GUI, reporting and administration tools, or rules-based management can obtain them—for a fee—from Snort's developer, Sourcefire.
Still, most experts believe the proportion of users seeking such services is small compared to the overall number of open-source applications in use—although given the nature of the open-source business model, it's difficult to get a true accounting of those figures.
"We estimate that we have five million 'users'," says Alex Roedling, senior product manager with MySQL, which distributes and supports an open-source database bearing the same name. Roedling says the MySQL user base includes 5,000 customers who pay for services and support because they fear becoming the target of a lawsuit if they modify the open-source database on their own.
Typically, Roedling says, manufacturers that implemented MySQL—and the list includes Airbus, Toulouse, France; Caterpillar, Peoria, Ill.; DaimlerChrysler, Auburn Hills, Mich.; Avery Dennison, Pasadena, Calif.; and Suzuki, Hamamatsu, Japan—use it for data warehousing to drive Web-based applications, or to develop self-service applications for use by employees, customers, and suppliers. Users also typically first deploy MySQL in a noncritical application before moving on to more significant endeavors.
That certainly was the case at automotive parts manufacturer Trace Die Cast, Bowling Green, Ky., where IT manager Dee Taylor admits "playing with MySQL as a hobbyist for five or six years before using it for production."
MySQL lies at the heart of the company's document control system, and also powers a system for tracking internal maintenance orders. MySQL also is used for prototyping, prior to migrating a developed application onto another database format.
It took a couple of years to convince upper management that MySQL was an appropriate choice, concedes Taylor.
"Their main concerns were reliability and uptime, and whether a software tool used by hobbyists would work on the plant floor," says Taylor.
And has it worked? "Well, I've still got my job," he grins.
Picking the right platform
11/30/2003
