Leveraging Open Source

Kimberly Hancher, Chief Information Officer (CIO) U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission January 2014

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Enforce laws against discrimination in the workplace. ü  2,100+ employees at 53 field sites and HQ

ü  20,000+ new cases received every year

ü Annual appropriation = about $362 Million

ü  IT budget = ranges between 4- 5% ($14-17 M)

ü  IT staff = 52 Govt+ 23 contractors at HQ

ü  Field IT staff = Touch support for break/fix

ü Data center @ DC HQ + LAN @ every field site

Challenges that led to Consideration of Open Source

1.  Strategic Plan Priorities 2.  Need for new functionality 3.  Integration with mission applications 4.  Decreasing IT budget 5.  Need for Technology Refresh Infrastructure -

HW, SW, Telecom, People

Open Source based Myths

•  Point 1 It is Free

•  Point 2 Throw away

•  Point 3 No Support

•  Point 4 Building Open Source solutions is cheap

•  Point 5 Lacks Maturity

Key Considerations For Adoption of Open Source based Products •  Affordability

•  Ease of implementation

•  Cloud based or on-premises

•  Technical Support

•  Proven and Mature

Open Source does not mean Free Software

One Approach - Injection

Look for those opportunities to inject Open Source into your Enterprise Architecture. 1.  Field File/Print Servers - Microsoft Server or

SUSE Linux as LAN Operating System? 2.  Application/Web Servers – Oracle Weblogic

or Red Hat Jboss Middleware 3.  Mission System Next Gen – COTS or Java? 4.  Digital File Management for Mission System

–Opentext Livelink vs Alfresco

EEOC Open Source Stack Category Product Usage

Middleware RedHat JBoss SOA/Web Services, Java Applications

Operating System SUSE Linux LAN OS

Reports BIRT On Demand Canned Reports for multiple applications

Content Management Alfresco Integrated Document Management

Development Tools Selenium jMeter GIT

Regression Testing Testing Code Repository

Open Source vis-à-vis Enterprise Architecture

Document Management Technology Component Document management includes software systems that allow enterprises to store, retrieve, generate, manage, and distribute electronic files, yielding greater efficiencies in the ability to reuse information and to establish workflow constructs.

Architectural Guidance & Usage Scenarios • OpenText is widely used to store documents from internal as well as external entities like OFO and Legal. • Alfresco should be considered for scenarios and new projects where document management is integrated within other application (or workflow) and does not require direct user access like OpenText (transparent interaction with documents). • Alfresco can run on the RedHat JBoss Application Server, which is owned by EEOC and installed at the hosted site.

Tactical (0-2 years usage cycle) • OpenText ECM Suite 2010 • Network File Folders

Containment and Retirement • Network File Folders

Watch List/Emerging • Alfresco (Open Source)

Strategic • TBD

Recommendations:

ü  Pick a business problem to solve ü Create a pilot project for the solution ü Be upfront with the Open Source vendor and ask for

a trial version but full Technical Support ü  Find the internal resource(s) and/or manager who

want to try new technologies ü Evaluate the performance – benefits, issues

ü Develop the Open Source Adoption plan appropriate to your agency

ü  Incorporate the vision into your strategic plan (enterprise architecture)

References •  DoD Open Source Software (OSS) FAQ •  http://dodcio.defense.gov/OpenSourceSoftwareFAQ.aspx

•  Timeline of the major events, publications, and code releases in the history of the US government •  http://gov-oss.org/

•  GSA’s Open Government Initiatives •  http://www.gsa.gov/portal/category/102007 •  https://github.com/gsa

•  Government Open Source Projects •  https://github.com/GSA/federal-open-source-repos

Questions?