Why Investment in OpenSource Technology Will Increase Significantly By 2018.

Posted by Billy Law-Bregan

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Reconnix recently surveyed 100 IT leaders in the UK’s private and public sectors.

The survey revealed that, within the next five years, over half of respondents will spend at least 20% of their IT budget on OpenSource applications and software.

The results also showed that as much as 61% of respondents intend to invest 20% or more in OpenSource. The majority—48%—were expecting to invest between 20% – 40%. 10% believe that their OpenSource spend could account for as much as 60% of their total budget.

This Represents a Huge Climb.

It is up from the 72% of IT leaders who say that today OpenSource technology makes up just a fifth or under (0-20%) of their portfolio.

The survey also revealed that investment levels in OpenSource technology will continue to rise. 16% suggested that they expect to dedicate 40-60% of their budgets to OpenSource technology by 2023. 4% believe they will be allocating between 80-100% of their budgets to OpenSource technology by that time.

Set against a backdrop of challenges, including reduced IT budgets, a lack of IT skills and IT infrastructures burdened by complexity, this drive for future investment may well be hampered by the current levels of Open Source traction. 77% of respondents reflect this. They indicated that they intend to invest less than 20% of their total IT spend on OpenSource technology in the next 12 months.

The Barriers to OpenSource Adoption are Rife.

47% of IT leaders revealed that cost implications is a current barrier to the adoption of OpenSource technology. Another 43% said that vendor lock in was a barrier, too. These leaders also indicated that a lack of in-house skills was holding them back. 55% of IT leaders also agreed that that there is little to no understanding of OpenSource amongst C-level decision makers outside of the IT department. This could make it harder to justify investment into this technology to the executive level.

The research findings have shown that OpenSource is definitely on the agenda for IT leaders. Yet, many IT leaders seem hesitant to invest in this technology as priority. Rather, they prefer to put it off as a challenge to resolve in the medium-term. The reality is that the sooner an organisation adopts Open Source into an its IT Eco-System, the sooner an organisation as a whole can enjoy the flexibility, agility and cost savings associated with this type of technology.

The benefits of OpenSource software have been well documented. Yet, there is also huge potential for any enterprise to make significant savings, with regards to the total cost of ownership of their IT estate, by implementing these technologies.

Find out more about the future of Open Source technology investment. Download the Open for Business insight paper. Alternatively, call Reconnix on 08454210444.

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What do you think about the report? Do you disagree with any of it? Let us know, leave a comment below!

R.I.S.E. Update.

Posted by Billy Law-Bregan

There’s been a change…

Unfortunately for you, but fortunately for the R.I.S.E. teams, the deadline for the challenge has been pushed back a week. I think this news comes as a great relief to the teams. They now have additional time to finalise their fantastic projects.

So, while the challenge is on hiatus, let’s take a look at some Arduino creations from elsewhere.

What’s happening in the World of Arduino?

The Arduino Smartwatch.

Well, since there’s so much hype about the new Apple Watch, here’s an Arduino version:

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Geeky Gadgets have shown the world that all you need is an Arduino, a 3D printer, and some knowhow and you can have your very own, home-made smartwatch.

The Arduino watch was created by Alessandro Matera, using a desktop 3D printer to create the case.

Alessandro gives a clear example of some of the issues that will be facing our R.I.S.E. teams. Speaking to Geeky Gadgets, Alessandro points out that:

At the beginning, I had to change the CR2032 battery every day, even if the watch goes in power save when not in use. I was going crazy! After checking and checking again the code, I’ve found that I’ve inserted the power save instruction in the wrong place and the watch never went in power save!

I’m sure our teams have faced similar issue. And, I’m sure we’ll find out all about it next week.

Let’s look at the watch in action:

The Star Wars Imperial March with the Arduino

This is a personal favourite of mine. Since the new Star Wars teaser trailers have been released, it’s only fitting that an Arduino project should be Star Wars related.

Say hello to the Arduino powered floppy drive orchestra:

The Imperial March being performed using a few floppy drives and an Arduino processor to control the whole thing. A truly fantastic creation.

Both of these amazing Arduino projects should help to inspire our R.I.S.E. teams. Stay tuned for the final next week…

Your turn. Tell us about your Arduino projects. What did you find difficult? What inspired your project? Let us know, leave a comment below. :)

AWS Summits London 2015.

Posted by Billy Law-Bregan

What a day!

Some of the Reconnix team were lucky enough to be able to attend the 2015 AWS Summits in London.

As soon as we stepped off the train, we quick marched to the ExCeL building. It was clear that this was going to be a big event. However, even we weren’t expecting to see this many people. Busy is not the word for it:

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Despite the fact that there were nearly 4000 people attending, Amazon Web Services did not disappoint. It was very well organised, if a little cramped at the escalators. We were able to see nearly everything that we wanted to see.

Positive Takeaway Points from the Summit.

The day was jam packed with information and high points. The Featured Keynote Speaker was Werner Vogels, CTO, Amazon.com. These are the keynote take away points that caught our eye and we hope you’ll find them interesting, too.

  • Redshift is the fastest growing service introduced by AWS.

According to Amazon.com chief technology officer Werner Vogels, Redshift data warehouse is the fastest-growing service in AWS’s nine-year history!

  • Transfer in/out S3 grew 102%.

The company’s Simple Storage Service (S3) is now measured using data transfers in and out of S3 rather than objects stored in S3 which has reached trillions. The rate grew 102%, in the fourth quarter of 2014.

  • 1,000,000 active EC2 customers in last 30 days.

Amazon.com boast more than one million active EC2 customers. An account that has been used within the last 30 days and not on Amazon.com was classed as active.

  • More than 5 times the compute capacity than all the other 14 cloud providers combined.

Now that is a claim! Vogels commented:

If you look at the Gartner Magic Quadrant for last year AWS sits up and lonely in the upper right-hand corner…we’re fine with that. Gartner estimates that AWS is the undisputed market share leader, with more than 5 times the compute capacity than all the other 14 cloud providers combined.

A Couple of Small Negatives.

Now, as with any event this large, there are going to be a few downsides:

  • A number of the more technical aspects were left until the end of the day.

Due to travel concerns, we couldn’t attend the more technical aspects of the Summit. Perhaps next time they can mix it up a bit.

  • Too much time reiterating basic concepts

For those of us that were already familiar with the core concepts of AWS, we would prefer a bit more insight into the finer aspects of AWS. Perhaps, next time, there could be a separate “core concepts/introductory” seminar.

All in all the day gets a massive thumbs up from the Reconnix team. The event was well organised. Considering the fact that nearly 4000 people attended, it went very well.

Here’s to the next one.

Cheers.

P.S. Russ McKendrick, Solutions Architect at Reconnix, talks about the AWS Summits London 2015. Check it out.

Your turn. did you attend the AWS Summit? How did you find the whole day? Let us know, leave a comment below. :)