I have built most of my business practices using either OSS (Open Source Software) or SaaS (Software as a Service) most of these tools cost little or nothing, and provide functionality as good or greater than the conventional offerings. I’ve decided to create this list as a resource for other small business owners, to provide them with at least a starting point for their journey into OSS and SaaS.
1. Data Storage
One thing most small businesses need is a place to store their data, last time I checked a license for Microsoft Small Business Server cost over $1000.00, a Ubuntu server disk is a 1 hour download and 20 minute setup to have a Samba File Server set up. Completely FREE. (This same machine can double as your network router as well, faster than 90% of the crap marketed to the SMB sector)
Now that you have your file server setup, you need to keep a backup of your data, Tape Backup is dead, commodity hard drives are so cheap, that buying drives is literally cheaper than purchasing a tape drive and tapes. A hot-swap bay in the front of your machine makes this a painless process, simply swap in the empty drive, and let the server copy the data from your main array.
Now some may not want to deal with the headache of managing their own off-site backups, for them a new cloud-based SaaS called Symform is a great solution. For a small monthly management fee, they’ll take your data, make a lot of copies of it, encrypt it using military grade encryption, and store it on a distributed network of servers. The catch? You have to provide as much local storage as you use on the “cloud,” since hard drives are cheap, this model works very well!
If you really want to know exactly where your data sleeps at night, Amazon’s S3 (Simple Storage Service) Cloud Storage System offers affordable secure storage starting at $0.15 GB per month, there are fee involved with storing and retrieving your data, but for backups, the cost is very small. The great part about this technology is the incredible scalability, you can go from a few Gigabytes to 100′s of Terabytes instantly, and you only pay for what you use.
If you don’t have a server, and just want to back up your laptop or desktop, Dropbox’s simple interface offers a bulletproof way to keep things synced, both between devices, and to their secure backup servers.
2. Communication & E-Mail
I use Google’s SaaS solution for myself and my customers with great success, aptly named Apps for your Domain, it was one of Google’s first big launches in the market that is predominately Microsoft controlled. In the afore-mentioned Microsoft Small Business server, an e-mail solution is included, for 5 users, extra user licenses are available, but you have to pay. Google offers up to 25 users in their free product, Google Apps Standard. Offering the familiar Gmail interface as a web client and still connecting to software clients using standard IMAP and POP3 protocols, it’s perfect for most small businesses, you get the reliability of off-site hosted solution with no to very low-cost.
For those that do like a desktop client, Mozilla’s Thunderbird, with the Lightning plug-in, offers all the functionality of Microsoft Outlook, without the hefty price tag. Also you can use the calendar and contact module to sync to the cloud-hosted Google Apps’ contacts and calendar, allowing you to over-the-air sync with many mobile phones and devices. I’ve been personally using this system for quite a while and don’t miss Outlook at all.
Another great feature of Google Apps for your Domain is an included Jabber/Google Talk server, making team communication a breeze. Useful for everything from teleconferencing to inter office communication, Google Talk is a great resource for the Small Business User.
3. Word Processing / Documents
Google’s Apps for your Domain does include their online cloud based word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation apps. Some may not like the “online-only” model though, for those users, the Sun Microsystems sponsored OSS OpenOffice.org is a great product, compatible with all major file formats, and capable of exporting universally acceptable PDFs, OpenOffice can save a lot of cash. With modules covering graphics, spreadsheets, documents, and databases, OpenOffice.org has the tools you need to run your business.
4. Mind/Project/Knowledge Management
This is an important task for engineering and development teams, an effective engineering library can do a lot to keep from re-inventing the wheel every time you add a member to the team. Searchable, multi media, and easy are all traits that a good Knowledge management portal should have. If you’ve ever used Wikipedia, then you know how a mediawiki works, mediawiki is the software that runs wikipedia, and guess what, it’s OSS! If the software is capable of running the largest crowd sourced repository of knowledge available, it will run your engineering library like a charm. The flexibility of mediawiki is hard to beat, and is also a great tool for collaborative work.
For individual knowledge/mind management, the excellent FreeMind is available, useful for organizing tasks, ideas, creative concepts, even document outlines, FreeMind’s innovative interface is very intuitive and has a natural organizational feel to it.
For big projects for big customers, they really like to see those Gantt charts, the excellent OpenWorkbench will save you having to purchase the leviathan Microsoft Project. Built with compatibility and power in mind OpenWorkbench provides all the tools you need to organize the largest of projects, and allows you to meet documentation requirements for development cycles.
There may be more to follow, but this will get you started!
Andrew Rodgers
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Using OSS and Cloud Computing to empower your business
I have built most of my business practices using either OSS (Open Source Software) or SaaS (Software as a Service) most of these tools cost little or nothing, and provide functionality as good or greater than the conventional offerings. I’ve decided to create this list as a resource for other small business owners, to provide them with at least a starting point for their journey into OSS and SaaS.
1. Data Storage
One thing most small businesses need is a place to store their data, last time I checked a license for Microsoft Small Business Server cost over $1000.00, a Ubuntu server disk is a 1 hour download and 20 minute setup to have a Samba File Server set up. Completely FREE. (This same machine can double as your network router as well, faster than 90% of the crap marketed to the SMB sector)
Now that you have your file server setup, you need to keep a backup of your data, Tape Backup is dead, commodity hard drives are so cheap, that buying drives is literally cheaper than purchasing a tape drive and tapes. A hot-swap bay in the front of your machine makes this a painless process, simply swap in the empty drive, and let the server copy the data from your main array.
Now some may not want to deal with the headache of managing their own off-site backups, for them a new cloud-based SaaS called Symform is a great solution. For a small monthly management fee, they’ll take your data, make a lot of copies of it, encrypt it using military grade encryption, and store it on a distributed network of servers. The catch? You have to provide as much local storage as you use on the “cloud,” since hard drives are cheap, this model works very well!
If you really want to know exactly where your data sleeps at night, Amazon’s S3 (Simple Storage Service) Cloud Storage System offers affordable secure storage starting at $0.15 GB per month, there are fee involved with storing and retrieving your data, but for backups, the cost is very small. The great part about this technology is the incredible scalability, you can go from a few Gigabytes to 100′s of Terabytes instantly, and you only pay for what you use.
If you don’t have a server, and just want to back up your laptop or desktop, Dropbox’s simple interface offers a bulletproof way to keep things synced, both between devices, and to their secure backup servers.
2. Communication & E-Mail
I use Google’s SaaS solution for myself and my customers with great success, aptly named Apps for your Domain, it was one of Google’s first big launches in the market that is predominately Microsoft controlled. In the afore-mentioned Microsoft Small Business server, an e-mail solution is included, for 5 users, extra user licenses are available, but you have to pay. Google offers up to 25 users in their free product, Google Apps Standard. Offering the familiar Gmail interface as a web client and still connecting to software clients using standard IMAP and POP3 protocols, it’s perfect for most small businesses, you get the reliability of off-site hosted solution with no to very low-cost.
For those that do like a desktop client, Mozilla’s Thunderbird, with the Lightning plug-in, offers all the functionality of Microsoft Outlook, without the hefty price tag. Also you can use the calendar and contact module to sync to the cloud-hosted Google Apps’ contacts and calendar, allowing you to over-the-air sync with many mobile phones and devices. I’ve been personally using this system for quite a while and don’t miss Outlook at all.
Another great feature of Google Apps for your Domain is an included Jabber/Google Talk server, making team communication a breeze. Useful for everything from teleconferencing to inter office communication, Google Talk is a great resource for the Small Business User.
3. Word Processing / Documents
Google’s Apps for your Domain does include their online cloud based word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation apps. Some may not like the “online-only” model though, for those users, the Sun Microsystems sponsored OSS OpenOffice.org is a great product, compatible with all major file formats, and capable of exporting universally acceptable PDFs, OpenOffice can save a lot of cash. With modules covering graphics, spreadsheets, documents, and databases, OpenOffice.org has the tools you need to run your business.
4. Mind/Project/Knowledge Management
This is an important task for engineering and development teams, an effective engineering library can do a lot to keep from re-inventing the wheel every time you add a member to the team. Searchable, multi media, and easy are all traits that a good Knowledge management portal should have. If you’ve ever used Wikipedia, then you know how a mediawiki works, mediawiki is the software that runs wikipedia, and guess what, it’s OSS! If the software is capable of running the largest crowd sourced repository of knowledge available, it will run your engineering library like a charm. The flexibility of mediawiki is hard to beat, and is also a great tool for collaborative work.
For individual knowledge/mind management, the excellent FreeMind is available, useful for organizing tasks, ideas, creative concepts, even document outlines, FreeMind’s innovative interface is very intuitive and has a natural organizational feel to it.
For big projects for big customers, they really like to see those Gantt charts, the excellent OpenWorkbench will save you having to purchase the leviathan Microsoft Project. Built with compatibility and power in mind OpenWorkbench provides all the tools you need to organize the largest of projects, and allows you to meet documentation requirements for development cycles.
There may be more to follow, but this will get you started!
Andrew Rodgers