Why Open Source Rules the Roost in the Universe of Big Data

The most obvious reason to choose open source software is that it’s free. But for most businesses, especially enterprises, that isn’t as big a point as you might think. After all, most companies think little of dropping $50,000 to $100,000 (often more) on a great software package. Yet open source software dominates the realm of big data solutions, and, in fact, is making quite an impact across the arena of business and enterprise software. Why?

Open Source is Hot for All Enterprise Solutions Right Now

Open source software like Hadoop and Spark rule when it comes to big data, but outside big data it’s also making a tremendous impact on other software solutions like virtualization (VMware) and containerization (Docker), databases (MySQL), Web servers (Tomcat), and many others. Open source software offers distinct advantages to businesses. Most importantly:

• Open source drives up quality. Developers can find and fix problems fast and can add new features quickly as the need becomes evident. With open and active communities, users can make their problems and needs known immediately, and developers can jump on solutions without going through lengthy studies and approval processes.

• Open source empowers business agility. With it, companies can respond to trends in the marketplace and industry quickly, without waiting for a proprietary software company to conduct some survey or focus group to identify the problem, determine a solution, get approval for development, yada, yada, yada.

• Open source reduces business risk. Yes, this is largely because the software is free, but it is also because they aren’t so tied to a specific vendor’s whims. It has become quite evident that huge software vendors can make drastic decisions, and since businesses are so dependent on their products, the businesses have little recourse besides accepting the changes — even when those changes aren’t in line with their needs and goals. Open source frees companies from being held hostage to proprietors’ decisions.

Open Source is Ideally Suited to Big Data Projects

Open source software is free, but that’s definitely not the main factor driving its popularity among businesses that think nothing of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on software licenses.

In the context of big data, these initiatives already come with an inherent risk. For all the hoopla about the business benefits of big data, each company has to make significant investments of money, time, resources, and personnel just to begin seeing a ROI. Since open source allows them to take on big data initiatives without a hefty initial investment, while keeping quality high and agility at a maximum, open source is ideally suited to big data programs and projects.

Even the Big Software Proprietors are Tossing a Hat Into the Open Source Pile

The popularity of open source has driven many software vendors into partnerships with open source projects. They gain leverage over the industry, increase their sphere of influence, and find new ways to monetize free, open source software products.

Open source was once viewed as a competitor to vendors like Microsoft, New Relic, Novell, and many others. Now these companies are partnering with open source developers like Apache, Hortonworks, Linux, and others, for the advantage of both. The open source developers can benefit from the knowledge, experience, and yes, deep pockets of these vendors. The vendors can increase their influence while finding ways to monetize the products, such as by providing support services, consulting services, and related products. Eventually, this arrangement will change the face of IT marketing completely, as more software, IT products, and services migrate to the “aaS” business model.

Are you interested in learning more about the future of big data products and solutions? Get more information on hosting your own Big Data Week event here.