Free and Open Source Software (free as in freedom not price) is software that is available under a license that grants the right to use, modify, and distribute the software, modified or not, to everyone. The public availability of the source code is, therefore, a necessary but not sufficient condition. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term for free software and open-source software. FOSS is in contrast to proprietary software, where the software is under restrictive copyright or licensing and the source code is hidden from the users.
FOSS maintains the software user’s civil liberty rights via the “Four Essential Freedoms” of free software. Other benefits of using FOSS include decreased software costs, increased security against malware, stability, privacy, opportunities for educational usage, and giving users more control over their own hardware. Free and open-source operating systems such as Linux and descendants of BSD are widely used today, powering millions of servers, desktops, smartphones, and other devices. Free-software licenses and open-source licenses are used by many software packages today. The free software movement and the open-source software movement are online social movements behind widespread production, adoption and promotion of FOSS, with the former preferring to use the terms FLOSS, free or libre.
Admin, short for administrator and also known as IT administrator, system administrator or sysadmin, is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems, especially multi-user computers, such as servers. The system administrator seeks to ensure that the uptime, performance, resources, and security of the computers they manage meet the needs of the users, without exceeding a set budget when doing so.
To meet these needs, a system administrator may acquire, install, or upgrade computer components and software; provide routine automation; maintain security policies; troubleshoot; train or supervise staff; or offer technical support for projects.
1. Community
Open source software usually has robust communities surrounding them. They are united by the same desire – to support and grow a solution that benefits both the organization and the community.
Having a big community rallying behind them can develop these solutions further, faster. They can introduce new concepts and functions more effectively than internal teams working on solutions delivered by a specific company.
2. The power of the crowd
Many brains deliver multiple, amazing results. The collective power of a united community of talented individuals can produce greater ideas, quicker development, and better troubleshooting in the event of complications.
3. Transparency
When you use open source code, you gain full insight into the code base, as well as any discussions about how the community develops features and fixes bugs. In contrast, secretly developed proprietary code may have unanticipated limits and other unpleasant shocks. You’re safe from lock-in dangers and can see exactly what you’re getting with open source software.
4. Reliability
With more people working on the open source software, you can expect high reliability. Since there is a global community supporting the code base instead of a single team employed by a specific company, you can rest assured that various experts oversee it.
The output is usually an extremely stable, working code. Because of this, the use of open source software among enterprises is rising. Both IT departments and specialists agree that open source has become strategically essential in the dynamic environment we have today.
5. Healthier security
The code of open source software is often more secure since it is checked and vetted thoroughly by a community of programmers. Should issues arise, they can be patched right away. The issue of security isn’t much of a concern at the moment.
6. Better functionalities
What drives programmers for making decisions about a solution’s direction is to create the best product possible. On the other hand, companies making proprietary code normally prioritize the bottom line, which isn’t always ideal. When selecting a technology that is critical to your business, make sure that its objective aligns with your own.
7. Faster time to market
Time to market is the period it takes for a company to get a product or service into the hands of its customers. It’s often a deciding factor whether a solution succeeds or not. This time covers the period when the idea came about, as well as the complete design cycle, development, and launch. It’s a lot easier to investigate and get solutions off the ground using open source solutions because they’re openly available to the public.
8. Cost effective
Open source software is more than just free software. It does not require license fees, which helps cut down the entire cost of deployment.
9. You’re not tied-in to a certain product
Using proprietary software for your main infrastructure heightens the risk of becoming locked in to a specific vendor or technology. If this happens, your business would have no choice but remain in the partnership despite price increases or lack of flexibility. Enterprises should take note, however, to adopt actual open source solutions rather than repackaged open source software with proprietary hooks.
10. Becoming the norm
Many large organizations that deploy open source solutions deliver high quality resources to the whole community.
An organization responsible for managing and delivering services to another organization as per their requirement is called a managed service provider (MSP). The services provided by an MSP typically are ongoing and remote. Traditionally, an MSP was used to manage or deliver information technology (IT) services like infrastructure, security, networking and applications. But a modern-day managed service provider may also manage an organization’s other business needs, such as staffing, payroll, customer engagement and vendor management.
A service provider that manages one or more of your business areas to maintain business continuity on a day-to-day basis is a managed service provider. MSPs are used as strategic partners to improve operational efficiency of businesses of all types and sizes from small to medium-sized (SMBs) to government agencies and nonprofit organizations.
Managed service providers have a pool of experts that can handle the most complex business processes. Thus, through MSPs, you get access to the best talent and latest technology available in the market without costs increasing quickly.
You can find a managed service provider to handle almost all your business processes. Traditionally, when IT infrastructure became crucial for business success, organizations started outsourcing their IT processes including Infrastructure installation and management, networking, security and data warehouses, this gave them access to the MSP’s expertise and capabilities without incurring high costs.
The same principle is now applied to any business processes in which organizations do not have in-house expertise and setting up the capabilities would require diverting resources from more important activities. For instance, with hybrid work models and multiple categories of employees―full-time, part-time, freelance, contractual and more―in every organization, human resources has become a complex process. So, many businesses choose to outsource their different human resources (HR) activities to professional employer organizations (PEOs).
Business processes that are usually outsourced to a managed service provider includes:
- Payroll
- IT services and infrastructure
- Workforce management
- Recruitment
- Vendor management
- Contract management and compliance
- Human resources
Once you have selected an MSP and the contracts and service-level agreements (SLAs) are in place, the service provider starts by fully analyzing the outsourced processes. This enables them to identify how to maximize resource utilization and reduce costs while improving process efficiencies. Their experts also identify challenges within your processes, which you might not have been able to do yourself.
Based on the analysis and liabilities and risk identification, the service provider builds a fully customized solution and provides ongoing maintenance and support for the outsourced processes.
Current business landscape is highly competitive and it makes sense for businesses to focus on their core competency. However other departments like staffing, HR, payroll and benefits administration, IT infrastructure and applications, are crucial for smooth running of the overall business.
MSPs have expertise in the processes that they manage. So, when you hire an MSP for noncore processes, you and your team can focus on activities that drive growth while ensuring that other processes are also being run by experts and not getting neglected. Here are some benefits of hiring an MSP:
- Processes are run by highly specialized and experienced experts
- Save on hiring and managing in-house experts to run the same processes
- Get access to the latest technologies and applications
- Scale up or down according to changing business needs quickly
- Most MSPs are subscription-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) services; you can easily predict the amount you will be spending every month
Before you find an MSP to manage a business process/area, you need to assess your needs and decide on a budget for it. Ask yourself―do you have the necessary in-house expertise to handle the processes you are planning to outsource. If you have the expertise, is it available freely or will you need to reallocate from other projects? Also, you need to consider if you will need to hire more people.
If you do not have the necessary expertise in-house, what will be your expenditure in the short-term, such as initial establishment costs, and then the recurring costs in the long term if you want that capability in-house. You should be spending less than that amount on the managed service provider.
Once you have decided that hiring a managed service provider would be more efficient and cost-effective, make a shortlist of eight to 10 MSPs. Research into their past performance, available team of experts and testimonials from past clients to understand if they will be able to meet your needs.
Remember that it is not necessary that they have a prior experience that is identical to your requirements. If they have the necessary expertise and the willingness to provide what you want, that should suffice.
Talk to the service providers representatives and understand how they will be managing and maintaining the services. This will help you in comparing the shortlisted MSPs and reaching a conclusion. Needless to add, the MSP must be able to work within your budget.
An MSP with a proven track record of success is best for you but if someone is new but willing to learn and provide excellent services, you should be open to trying them out. Changing MSPs frequently does not bode well for business continuity and growth. So, explore their company culture and try to judge if you would be able to forge a long-term relationship with them.
An MSP should cost less than it takes you to set up the capability in-house. While calculating the cost of setting up the in-house team, take into account not the initial fixed cost of hiring and buying tools but also recurring costs of employee payment and engagement.
A managed service provider is responsible for delivering services, such as IT infrastructure and maintenance, security, payroll and benefits administration, vendor management, HR, and customer relationships management (CRM) to your business. They are further responsible for the day-to-day administration and management of these services.
The business area that you have outsourced is typically managed by the MSP using SaaS. The application creates users with requisite permissions, and they can use the application as if it were running in-house.