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Support Partners Provide The Holistic Foothold Enterprises Need To Address Risk And Time Reduction Challenges

FORRESTER OPPORTUNITY SNAPSHOT: A CUSTOM STUDY COMMISSIONED BY IBM | OCTOBER 2019

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Open Source Has Gone Mainstream

Open source technologies are an important part of enterprise

technology strategies today. Our study found that 90%

of enterprises are using at least two types of open source

technologies. But open source is not without challenge, particularly

given evolving business demands and customer requirements.

When depending on a large variety of open source technologies,

there’s a strong need for enhanced support.

Traditionally, open source users have turned to peer-to-peer

communities and commercial editions for that support. Although

these support options help address best practices and real-

time problem solving for a single open source technology,

many challenges span multiple open source technologies. Most

enterprises require a more holistic support model, but our study

found that 53% of enterprises are not aware vendor support

services are available for open source technologies.

Key Findings

Fifty-five percent of enterprises are using five

or more types of open source software and

frameworks.

Enterprises need to unlock the full potential of

large-scale open source adoption with holistic

support models, but 53% aren’t even aware

vendor support services are available for open

source technologies.

Enterprises are using a combination of

community and commercial editions of open

source technologies in both development/test

and production.

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UNLOCK OPEN SOURCE TECHNOLOGY’S FULL VALUE

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Open Source Technology Is Critical To Enterprises

Open source technology has gone mainstream. Today’s open

source users aren’t dabbling in open source for noncritical systems

or limiting themselves to a single technology. Our study found that

in the general market, 90% of enterprises are leveraging at least

two types of open source technologies, and 55% use five or more.

The top uses are cloud platform and infrastructure automation,

databases, and development platforms and container orchestration.

However, today’s open source users need help. Despite heavy

usage of open source technologies across enterprises, only 26%

consider themselves excellent users of open source technologies.

Excellent usage means there is companywide strategic usage

across a long list of software. The remaining 74% consider

themselves good, average, or below average. Improvement

requires support services to fill in skill and knowledge gaps.

“Which of the following classes of open source software tools/frameworks does your team use today?”

Base: 263 open source decision makers from global enterprisesSource: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of IBM, September 2019

(Select all that apply)

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90% of enterprises use two or more open source technologies

55% of enterprises use five or more open source technologies

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“Do you use the community or commercial editions for the open source technologies you are using today?”

Enterprises Use Both Community And Commercial Editions In Production And Testing

Open source users are not strangers to certain forms of support. Organizations have long leveraged

commercial versions of open source technologies; our survey respondents are taking full advantage of not

only community versions, but also more hardened, commercial versions. Our study found that usage is not

limited to development and test but instead extends to production. Usage of community and commercial

editions in both production and development and test enables enterprises to problem solve in real time,

use best practices right from the start, and bridge public and private cloud environments.


“Do you use the following open

source technologies in production,

development and testing, or both?”

Application frameworks

Application server

SCM tools

Application definition and image build

45%

45%

31%

28%

29%

27%

26%

26%

Both community and commercial editions

Both dev/test and production

57% of respondents leverage communities for open source support.

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Enterprises Struggle With Risk And Time Reduction Challenges

Since enterprise are leveraging many open source technologies,

their challenges exist beyond optimizing their usage for a single

technology. It spans their open source ecosystems. When

enterprises think holistically about their greatest open source

challenges, they find the following problems most severe: security

and compliance risks, interoperability, and the high cost of using

commercial licenses at scale.

Many of these challenges occur where projects intersect — not

struggles from a single technology. To solve for this, enterprises

may start to leverage partners that also bridge their open source

technologies rather than those that focus on one particular open

source support model.

“What support challenges do you face when using open source technologies?”


(Showing top three)

56%

51%

Higher cost of using commercial licenses at scale

High security and compliance risk

Interoperability challenges

52%

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“Where have peer-to-peer communities fallen short when leveraged as the only support options?”

Peer-To-Peer Communities Fail To Provide Holistic Support

Open source has been rooted in community-based support for a long time, and users still heavily leverage

them today. However, the use of open source technologies requires a more flexible, interoperable ecosystem

than ever before. Our study shows this requires time-sensitive solutions and identification of interoperability

and infrastructure issues.

Peer-to-peer communities fall short in providing holistic support that bridges open source technologies.

Vendor support partners offer more holistic support programs that accelerate development, improve

efficiencies, and reduce risks. However, our study found that more than half (53%) of enterprises are not

even aware vendor support services are available for open source technologies.


There is no real-time support

They cannot identify interoperability issues

Response times are too slow

They cannot identify infrastructure issues59%

55%

50%

46%


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Achieve Desired Benefits From Open Source Technology

Enterprise respondents recognize the critical value open source

technology can provide once key challenges have been addressed.

The most important benefits enterprises are looking for mirror the

biggest challenges we saw earlier in the study.

Leveraging a support model that connects and integrates open

source technologies will provide enterprises the desired benefits of

improved security, better integration, and faster development.

“What would be the most valuable benefits of removing the challenges you listed earlier to getting the most value out of your open source technologies?”



54%

47%

Improved interoperability

Lower security and compliance risk

48%

46%

Better integration with projects and open source technologies

Faster development

36% said keeping up with technology changes would be key to removing open source technology challenges.

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“What open source support services would generate the most value for your organization?”

Enterprises Need Support To Unlock Their Open Source Technology To Its Fullest Potential

Open source technology can accelerate enterprises with their digital transformations by providing a

quickly developing innovation ecosystem filled with like-minded peers. But to successfully use open

source to win, serve, and delight customers, there’s a level of quality and performance that is expected.

Respondents identified key support needs: integration with other open source and enterprise software,

proactive notifications about patches or fixes, the ability to switch to less expensive community editions, and

improved security through vulnerability reporting. A specialist in a single open source category can achieve

some of these demands, but integrations and the ability to successfully meet performance expectations on

community editions are reserved for players that can support across complex software stacks.


Proactive notification of patches and fixes

Cost reduction by switching to community editions

Vulnerability reporting

Integration with other enterprise solutions and open source technologies 43%

40%

39%

37%

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Conclusion

Increasingly, enterprises need to accelerate development, improve

efficiencies, and validate and solve complex business cases.

Vendor support partners play a key role by providing real-time

problem solving and best practices and enabling enterprises to

bridge public and private cloud environments and remove/address

the complexity of supporting this growing open infrastructure.

However, 53% of enterprises are not even aware of dedicated

vendor support services for open source technologies.

The top driver for open source adoption is rapidly growing

innovation communities. Vendor support partners can fill in skill

and knowledge gaps offering rare expertise when internal skills

seem transient or difficult to maintain. Utilization of vendor support

partners to overcome optimization and innovation challenges will

help ensure enterprises are meeting the demands of their modern

business and customer requirements.

Project Director:Sarah Brinks, Market Impact Consultant

Contributing Research:Forrester’s infrastructure and operations research group

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Methodology

This Opportunity Snapshot was commissioned by IBM. To create this profile, Forrester Consulting supplemented this research with custom survey questions asked of open source developers, decision makers, and managers. The custom survey began and was completed in September 2019.

Learn how to solve the challenges:http://ibm.biz/OSS-Solved

ABOUT FORRESTER CONSULTINGForrester Consulting provides independent and objective research-based consulting to help leaders succeed in their organizations. Ranging in scope from a short strategy session to custom projects, Forrester’s Consulting services connect you directly with research analysts who apply expert insight to your specific business challenges. For more information, visit forrester.com/consulting.

© 2019, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester®, Technographics®, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For additional information, go to forrester.com. [E-44746]

Demographics

28% 500 to 999 employees

44% 1,000 to 4,999 employees

21% 5,000 to 19,999 employees

7% 20,000+ employees

29% Executive level

8% Vice president

63% Senior IT decision maker

28% North America

37% Europe

35% APAC

20% Technology

10% Retail

8% Telecommunications

62% Additional industries

GEOGRAPHY

INDUSTRY

COMPANY SIZE

TITLE

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