| Thanks. It doesn't always work out - clients/managers often seem to have "all the cool kids are using it" and/or "but it's the cloud, everyone uses the cloud now" mentality, but I try. I should also emphasise that I'm mostly talking about infrastructure level "lock in" here - e.g. the artificial lock-in AWS creates for their Load Balancer and/or Elastic IP service by giving VMs new IPs on reboot, etc. I definitely prefer Open Source solutions, but I'm one step more pragmatic in that space too - if a piece of locally-installable but proprietary software does the job and works with open standards (e.g. if you want to use self-hosted atmail) I'm less worried/vocal about that than if you say you want to use Gmail or whatever, but I'd still try to suggest a more open option. In terms of resources, no sorry I don't have any single resource to go on, besides a basic rule/test: Can I demonstrate the full stack being implemented, using one or more laptops (e.g. using VMs) on a plane or cruise ship? You could equally say "can i test the full stack while the WAN is disconnected" but that doesn't sound as fun! I'm actually building my new business around this basic idea - giving smaller companies a better option to keep more control of their tech without the need for a full-time sysadmin (which is often financially impossible even if they wanted to). I genuinely believe the vast majority of things most businesses want/need to achieve can be done with existing Open Source software, its just usually not particularly easy to setup the various pieces, and make them work together. |
A stack like you describe with good traits of Nitix-like solutions could be great for businesses not wanting much IT overhead. Might spread like wild fire so long as you don't sell out or balk over patent suits.
[1] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1734766,00.asp