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By Professor Jim Nortonsponsored by Amadeus

Published: September 17, 2012

Open For BusinessThe value of Open Source Software in transaction processing

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2 About the AuthorOpen for Business:

Professor Jim NortonFREng Beng Cdir CITP Ceng Deng LLD FloD FRSA isimmediate Past President of the BCS – the CharteredInstitute for IT, a board member of the parliamentaryoffice of Science and Technology, Chief ExternalExaminer for the Institute of Director’s Certificate in Company Direction and a trustee of the Foundation forinformation Policy Research.

His past roles include Chief Executive of the UK Radiocommunications Agency and Chairman of Deutsche Telekom Ltd. He is a respected adviser to governments, an independent director and has served on severalnotable enquires and commissions. He led the team thatauthored the report on e-commerce for the British Prime Minister and was a member of the IPPR’s Commission onNational Security in the 21st Century.

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3 About AmadeusOpen for Business:

Amadeus IT Group is a leading transaction processor and provider of advanced technology solutions for the global travel

and tourism industry.

First investor in R&D for the computer services and traveland tourism sectors (€340m in 2011)

Committed both to Open Source and to thoughtleadership.

Currently using Open Source in key projects likeAltéa Reservations, Inventory, Departure Control

System, among others.

We have sponsored this new white paper that urges the travel industry to embrace the benefits of open

source software (OSS).

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4 What is Open Source Software?Open for Business:

In computing, open systems refers to systems built using OSS standards. They offer a good level of portability and independence from the hardware

platforms on which they operate. The three characteristics of OSS are openness, availability, and no restrictions.

1.Open

The standard must notwithhold any detail

necessary for the exchangeand use of information.

2.Available

The standard must be freelyand publicly available under

royalty free terms at a reasonable cost.

3.Unrestricted

All patents essential toimplementation of the

standard must be licensedunder royalty free terms for

unrestricted use.

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5 From closed to open systemsOpen for Business:

The concept of open systems started around the late 1960s, where thefirst steps were taken to link different computer systems together across

communications networks. Following this, attention turned to the attachedcomputer systems. Most practical implementations lie somewhere on the

spectrum between open and closed systems.

1. From virtualisation to cloud computing"Virtualisation" means a single mainframe computer can run separateinstances of the same operating system at the same time; the creation of "Cloud Computing" from virtualisation came through the development of "orchestration", allowing many virtual machines to be managed across a range of physical hardware.

2. Open systems successAlmost all of the successful “Web” businesses launched in the last ten years have drawn on this base of Virtualised open systems, familiar namessuch as Google, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter all operate in thisway.

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6 Cloud computingOpen for Business:

The combination of virtualised open systems plus sophisticatedorchestration leads to the concept of purchasing computing capability as a

utility: cloud computing.

1. InfrastructureBasic virtual machines, virtualised storage and

network access are madeavailable to users.

2. PlatformThis adds a pre-configured

operating system and

middleware.

3. SoftwareResponsibility for theapplication software istransferred to the cloud

service provider

4. Business ProcessComplete suite of applicationsto perform a major business

function.

5. Growth of the cloudCloud Computing is the fastest

growing service type in theoutsourcing market (+48% growth last year, with total

spending of $5bn).

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7 How does Amadeus use open systems?Open for Business:

Altéa Customer Management System

At the operating system level, Amadeus is successfully transitioning from proprietarysystems to Linux to run its leading Altéa Customer Management System for airlines.

Amadeus leading online innovations

Leading innovations online, including e-Retail, Dynamic Website Manager and Extreme Search have been built with extensive use of open source components in ways that would not be possible using legacy components.

Amadeus open source framework

Amadeus ARIA™ Templates – the framework upon which Amadeus IT Group’s web solutions are based – has recently been made open source, allowing third party developers to use it without charge.

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8 Advantages for the business customerOpen for Business:

Access to greaterinnovation

The combination of open source software, open

systems interoperability and open standards has created

a community of sharedresearch and developmentand a pooling of creativeideas. Those that show promise in testing and

development are implemented and adopted

more quickly

Faster responses tochanging requirements

Customer engagement and involvementand the influence of social networks

place further demands on immediacy of process. Access to a range of cost

effective development tools, ability toscale rapidly and access to a global

knowledge base, all favour the use of the "open" approach.

Multi-systemsupport

Business organisations use a wide variety of current

legacy systems all at different stages of their

lifecycle. The ability, through open systems, to

draw on an extensive rangeof standards and interfaces shared and developed over

20 years can be a keydifferentiator.

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9 Advantages for the providerOpen for Business:

Access to skilled, motivated and innovative staff: A whole

generation has grown up with access to both the Internet and open source. They want to work freely with these systems and tools.

Rapid adoption of new technology developments: New

developments in hardware, network based storage and software are a regular occurrence. It is important to have timely access to these innovations which the open source community offers.

Drawing on the global community: The open source community

now numbers in the millions, and includes software architects, analysts, designers, programmers and key universities. There are extensive opportunities for collaboration.

Avoidance of dependencies: Open Source limits restricted

dependencies on single sources and therefore limits the pricing power.

Lower total cost of ownership: Open Source is generally free to

obtain, but in order to compare costs we have to consider the total cost of ownership (TCO) over the lifetime of use of the software. Industry lore is that a TCO saving of around 20% is achievable.

Full visibility and confidence on the source code: Extensive

public review and correction of the code can minimise the avenues for attack and offer a more rapid response and defense against attacks.

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10 Advantages for the travellerOpen for Business:

Greater choice and depth of services

Open source both enables greater (as well as faster) innovation and additionally makes it possible to deliver services that would not be financially viable under the economic model of proprietary software.

Democratisation of services

Functionality that would otherwise only be viable to provide on a limited scale or at a high price point – as it would be supported either by proprietary software or by manual activity – can be offered widely when supported by open source software.

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11 Key findingsOpen for Business:

Benefits for the business customer:

OSS is now applicable in the most demanding real-time processing environments.

Benefits for businessproviders:

Benefits for travellers:

The transition from closed to open systems represents a major integrity and fitness. Where key functions can move between countries or continents on demand, new approaches and working relationships are required.

OSS and cloud computing will have a great impact in computing and informatics

o Greater innovationo Faster response to changeo Ability to support heterogeneous systems.

o Access to motivated and skilled development and support staffo Reduced cost of ownership and independency from Monopoly supplierso Faster exploitation of new technology developmentso Higher visibility and trust in the source code

o Greater choice and depth of serviceso Democratization of services

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12 For your informationOpen for Business:

on our corporate Blog, where you'll find the original report and a series of posts from different authors on this topic.

Find out more about Open Source Systems (OSS)

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