With increasing attention on the possibilities of open source, CIOs have many questions regarding its capabilities, viability and cost to the organization. In May 2005, 12 CIO Executive Council members came together via a conference call to discuss the role of open source in their organizations, focusing on topics such as this “free” software’s total cost of ownership (TCO); making a business case to senior executives; the relationship with the open-source community, which shares code and answers support questions; and what types of projects are best suited for open source.
Brian Shield, moderator of the conference call, shared insights gleaned from his experience at The Weather Channel. When he arrived there in fall 1998 as executive vice president and CIO, Shield found a progressive company looking to create technology products that could support the long-term vision of the programming and advertising organizations. Fortunately, support for a move to open source already existed at the highest levels of the company, as Frank Batten Jr., then CEO of Landmark (The Weather Channel’s parent company), was an angel investor of open-source company Red Hat. Below, Shield outlines why The Weather Channel made the move to open source.
1 To rein in software costs.
Shield realized he had little control of vendors’ software licenses and maintenance fees, which were the fastest-growing components of his operating costs on an annualized basis. He found that open source would give his organization more input in this area, because The Weather Channel would not be relying on commercial software solutions but on lower-cost and equally robust open-source code. Shield consulted his IT operations team to figure out where alternative open-source solutions could meet or exceed the requirements of The Weather Channel’s multimedia outlets. He then evaluated and deployed open-source alternatives that provided many benefits.
2 To improve infrastructure capability and scalability.
After Shield and his team experimented with open source in 1999, they oversaw their first major project: a move to MICO, an open-source alternative for the system that transmits weather data over satellites. Open source appeared to be the right move, but since satellites are core to the company’s mission, the product had to be reliable.
“Any outages would be noticed on air. When we asked other MICO customers about their use, no commercial customers were willing to say that they had actually used it in production,” remembers Chris McClellen, vice president of software engineering at The Weather Channel.
The team tested the technology for six months, evaluated other open- and closed-source alternatives, and felt confident it would serve their needs. According to Shield, the move to MICO paid off, and The Weather Channel experienced no downtime. The deployment lasted just a day as MICO was pushed to internal servers. It is still in production today, and more than 70 million Weather Channel consumers are able to receive information at any time of the day from host servers running open-source solutions.
On The Weather Channel Interactive side of the company, open source provides huge benefits. Today, Weather.com is the 10th-largest website in the world and runs almost 100 percent on the open-source database MySQL.
3 To attract and retain staff.
“Today, when we look at a technology need, our first assumption is that the solution is open source,” Shield says. The approximately 25 developers at The Weather Channel and the 19 developers at The Weather Channel Interactive share this philosophy. Using open source, staff can optimize technology from the outset for a specific use rather than rely on commercial products. This environment helps attract and retain IT staff by offering challenging opportunities for creativity and problem-solving. As Shield notes, “When I scout new talent, I look for people who want to raise the bar. My most important interviewing questions revolve around a candidate’s capacity and desire to learn more.”
The staff relies on the open-source community (in addition to internal expertise) to answer support questions when they arise. However, for tools deemed critical, Shield makes sure his staff has the expertise. Developers are encouraged to give back to the open-source community from which they take. In areas such as graphic drivers and operating systems, Shield has no problem contributing code. In fact, he has found that after contributing, support questions are better received.
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–Carrie Mathews is Member Services Manager of the CIO Executive Council.
