Imagine a government in which IT systems connect citizens to services, data moves easily among agencies and public-sector employees, and information is truly open and accessible. A government with systems like these would better serve its citizens, be more efficient, and free agencies to focus more on agency mission.
Information technology administrators are getting close to making that vision a reality as they turn to open source technology – especially technologies like OpenStack. OpenStack is an open source cloud computing software platform, created through a publicly accessible, collaborative process in which everyone is free to make improvements.
Features of OpenStack include letting users deploy virtual machines and other instances that handle different tasks for managing a cloud environment on-the-fly and making horizontal scaling easy. This means tasks that benefit from running simultaneously can serve more or fewer users quickly by spinning up more virtual instances.
Because OpenStack is open source, communities can access the source code, make edits or modifications as they see fit, and share the changes with the developer community to help improve the software. Partnering with the private sector is important, too — experts like Red Hat help make an open source collaboration a stable and secure platform that is commercially supported for the long term.
To learn how OpenStack can help government overcome some of its biggest challenges, we sat down with David Egts, Chief Technologist of Public Sector at Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, and Jason Kincl, Systems Administrator at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), to produce this GovLoop Industry Perspective. Read on for further benefits of open source and OpenStack technology, especially as it relates to cloud implementation; a case study from ORNL on adapting OpenStack; how industry partners can help you best implement open source technology; and best practices on using OpenStack and open source at your agency.
