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These guidelines are for IT managers and practitioners who are planning or doing a migration to Open Source Software (OSS). They are based on the practical experience of the authors and the content of a limited number of publicly available case studies. They have been validated against the migration to OSS in the Court of Auditors, Schwerin in Mecklenberg Vorpommern.
There are many reasons for Administrations to migrate to OSS. These include: the need for open standards for e-Government; the level of security that OSS provides; the elimination of forced change; the cost of OSS. All these benefits result in far lower IT costs.
The guidelines recommend:
before starting have a clear understanding of the reasons to migrate;
ensure that there is active support for the change from IT staff and users;
make sure that there is a champion for change – the higher up in the organisation the better;
build up expertise and relationships with the OSS movement;
start with non critical systems;
ensure that each step in the migration is manageable.
Migrating IT systems provides an opportunity to re-engineer them to meet the new demands placed on them. Questions that need to be addressed include:
how to ensure the interoperability of systems;
how to support mobile users;
how to securely identify remote users;
how to build systems that are manageable.
Above all how to ensure that security is designed in from the start and not tacked on as an after thought.
For server computing, OSS is well understood and is extensively deployed. Migrating servers to OSS can generally be done without having any adverse effects on the users. It is normally the first place to start.
Deploying OSS on the desktop for most organisations offers the largest cost savings. When migrating the desktop the new OSS applications will have to inter-work with existing applications. In particular, the way in which group calendering interworks in both OSS and proprietary desktops must be addressed.
When replacing proprietary office automation software templates must be checked to ensure that they produce the correct output. Macros need to be re-written – preferably as scripts. Applications for which there are no OSS equivalents can be run as thin clients. Over time desktop applications can be replaced with OSS equivalents.
Although the guidelines assume a complete change to OSS the likelihood is that a heterogeneous environment will be built particularly as a migration of thousands of desktops will take time. Mixtures of OSS and proprietary applications are also likely because replacement OSS applications may not always be available or suitable. At the moment this is particularly true in the replacement of Microsoft's Exchange groupware function. However there are enough OSS applications of sufficient quality to make migration compelling.
It is important to make sure that decisions made now, even if they do not relate directly to a migration, should not further tie an Administration to proprietary file formats and protocols.
OSS is a disruptive technology. It enables a fundamental change to the way organisations provide IT services. It is a move away from a product to a service based industry. OSS software costs nothing to install. The issue is where to get support. There are a number of third party support companies as well as the distribution vendors. However if your attitude to IT is “Who do I sue when things go wrong?” then perhaps OSS is not for you. An understanding of the dynamics of the OSS movement is necessary. Knowing how to relate to the OSS community is advisable.