Case Study: Open Source in the Data Center

Mark Reyer, Oregon State Data Center (SDC) Director. The SDC is a 24/7 operation housed within a tier III certified facility that provides shared information technology (IT) infrastructure services to thousands of state and local government programs.  At the end of last year, the SDC completed a multi-year  network consolidation of 11 separate agency data centers into a single data center to save  time, money and energy, as well as reduce carbon emissions. The effort was the most far-reaching technology initiatives undertaken by Oregon.  Today the SDC is reviewing investments in software tools and applications and includes open source software as a complementary strategy.

This session will cover: Drivers for considering open source software in an enterprise environment which delivers state agency-wide centralized services; How open source applications and tools were identified and evaluated; Experience with sourcing installation and support including vendors, consulting, open source community and internal staff; What applications and tools are in place today, plus future plans; Economic and technical benefit; Key lessons learned.