It is important for both companies and individuals to address the shortage of skilled technology professionals. This year, 46% of employers plan to hire more people with expertise in open-source technologies, and they will need a constant flow of qualified candidates to fill these positions. A career in the information technology field offers an average annual salary of over $100,000, the potential for advancement, and the opportunity to work in a dynamic industry.

However, not everyone has the time or desire to pursue a college degree in Computer Science, which means there are many people with the potential to excel in the IT field but who have not yet had the opportunity to develop their skills.

To address this issue, RedHat developed the Red Hat workforce development program for aspiring IT professionals and the companies that will hire them. The program provides hands-on training in Red Hat technologies and the opportunity to become a certified Red Hat System Administrator to students who are not seeking a degree, including those who want to switch careers or start a new one. This program helps enterprises find qualified, entry-level employees with experience using open-source software.

In 2021, they launched the program in partnership with two North Carolina community colleges: Wake Technical Community College and Fayetteville Technical Community College. The goal is to expand the program nationwide to address the shortages of skilled technology professionals that are affecting organizations and individuals throughout the country.

That’s why they’re excited to announce that, starting in 2023, they will partner with Bunker Hill Community College in Massachusetts to offer the Red Hat workforce development program to students across the state.

Creating Equity in Massachusetts’ Technology Workforce

The state of Massachusetts has taken a proactive approach to support workforce development for students and young people who want to work in the technology industry. For example, the state recently held STEM Week to increase interest in STEM careers, particularly among women, people of color, people with disabilities, and English language learners.

Offering the Red Hat workforce development program at community colleges throughout Massachusetts aligns with the state’s efforts to develop a skilled technology workforce. The program aims to increase diversity in the technology industry by giving underrepresented individuals the chance to learn valuable skills that they can use to enter the job market.

This aligns with the views of Massachusetts’ Lieutenant Governor, Karyn Polito, who recently attended a workforce development event at Red Hat’s Boston offices. “Programs like the one offered by Red Hat can be essential in making a career in technology a reality for a student who may not otherwise have the chance to work in the field,” said Polito, who is also the co-chair of Massachusetts’ STEM Advisory Council. “We need more programs like this to provide people with accessible and essential IT skills training.”

Growing and Evolving

Red Hat’s partnerships with Massachusetts and North Carolina are the first steps in what will likely be a growing and evolving workforce development program. The company plans to continue seeking opportunities to partner with additional states across the country as it works towards its workforce development goals and strives to reduce the shortage of skilled technology professionals.

 

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Red Hat Application Foundations now offers a version of OptaPlanner, which helps developers find the best solution for a given data set and constraints. OptaPlanner is an open-source project that provides a lightweight, embeddable engine for solving optimization problems such as scheduling, vehicle routing, and rostering. The Red Hat build of OptaPlanner allows customers to build scalable planning applications that can effectively handle complex constraint satisfaction challenges.

To navigate the constantly changing landscape and improve efficiency, businesses, particularly those in asset-intensive industries, are adopting digital solutions. Research firm IDC predicts that by 2026, 75% of large enterprises will use artificial intelligence to optimize asset utilization, streamline supply chains, and enhance product quality in distributed environments. The need for optimized business processes is particularly acute in the remote work environment, where employees may not be on-site to make informed decisions about operations.

The Red Hat build of OptaPlanner can be used to create effective plans and schedules for various purposes, such as shift scheduling for employees, route planning for fleet vehicles, and job assignment to machines or assembly lines. It can be used to solve a variety of optimization problems.

The Foundation for Advanced Application Development

Red Hat Application Foundations is a group of application services that work with Red Hat OpenShift to speed up the development and delivery of containerized applications across different cloud environments. It is designed to help organizations quickly create and integrate applications and data services as part of their plan to modernize their infrastructure and applications. With Red Hat Application Foundations, teams can select the most suitable technologies for their changing needs as they develop their application strategy.

 

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There has been some concern about the lack of modules in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9. The Beta release only included one module, and there were none in the initial release. This has led to questions about the current status and future plans for modules.

This article will explore the history of modules in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), discuss some of the experiences and lessons learned during their adoption, and provide information about what to expect from RHEL 9.

Application streams

In RHEL 8, a new feature called application streams was introduced. These streams allow for faster updates to popular applications than was previously possible with RHEL releases. Newer versions of applications are introduced as new streams that are supported for a set period of time.

Some people have mistakenly assumed that modules are the same as application streams. However, modules are actually a packaging format technology and are just one of the forms that application streams can take. Other types of application streams include:

• Traditional RPMs
• Modules
• Flatpaks
• Software Collections

The packaging format for a particular application stream is chosen based on which one is the best fit for the component, the duration of support, and the upstream community’s plans.

Modules are only used when they are the best technology for the task at hand. If another format would be more beneficial, that is the one that is used.

Modules

As previously mentioned, it is often necessary to support multiple application streams for overlapping periods of time. With traditional RPMs, this can be difficult because the newest version will always be selected. This can cause problems if major versions of the software are not backward compatible, as updating to a new version of a database, for example, could result in an outage or other issues.

In RHEL 7, the preferred format was software collections (SCL). These were useful for installing multiple versions of software at the same time, but if you only wanted a specific version to be installed, they were not ideal.

Modules are the best option when you do not need to have multiple versions of software installed or running at the same time. By packaging specific major versions of software together as a module and modifying the package management tooling to support these modules, multiple versions can be made available simultaneously. End users can then choose which version they need while still being able to perform system updates. With modules, there is no need to use “scl enable” commands because the version is selected at installation time.

Why are there so few modules in RHEL 9?

Customers have largely been very positive about application streams, but there is always room for improvement. One improvement that has been identified is to identify full life streams (those with the same life cycle as RHEL 9) as early as possible so that customers can incorporate this information into their adoption plans earlier in the release process.

Another improvement that has been made was motivated by the desire to clearly differentiate between versions that will be supported for the full life of the RHEL release and those that will only be supported for a shorter period of time.

To address this need, whenever possible, a particular version is designated as the full-life version of an application for the initial release. Additionally, this version is released as a traditional RPM instead of a module. This means that users and developers who want to rely only on these full-life application streams can omit module-specific tooling and processes.

Will there ever be modules in RHEL 9?

In the future, as more major versions of application streams are identified as necessary, subsequent releases of RHEL 9 will include additional application streams with shorter periods of support. If there is an overlap or conflict between versions, modules will be used as the packaging format when it is the best fit for the application.

How does that work?

RHEL 9 will not include any default module streams. Without being enabled, module streams take precedence over traditional RPMs. By releasing a single stream as traditional RPMs and offering modular streams at a later date, users can have the best of both worlds.

When not specifically allowed otherwise, the standard RPM version will be used, improving the user experience by further simplifying the package management procedure.

Continually improving

Based on their experience with software collections, modules in RHEL 8, and customer feedback, they have improved the module user experience in RHEL 9.

 

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In 2022, the training team at Red Hat Training and Certification offered free monthly webinars called “Taste of Training” that highlighted our existing course offerings and provided updates on Red Hat technology. If you missed the live sessions, don’t worry – each webinar is available to watch on demand for one year after the live presentation. Here is a summary of the topics covered this year.

10 On-demand Red Hat Training Webinars

1. Deploying and managing cloud storage with Red Hat Ceph Storage 5

Software-defined storage allows organizations to expand their data storage needs and run applications at the scale of the cloud. In this webinar, we will discuss the latest version of Red Hat Ceph Storage.

2. Introduction to pragmatic site reliability engineering

This webinar offers a preview of a new training course that covers the basic concepts needed for organizations to start implementing site reliability engineering (SRE). Attend to learn a practical approach to SRE and its key principles.

3. Functionia: An event-driven adventure in the serverless metaverse with OpenShift Serverless

This webinar offers a preview of a new training course that covers the basic concepts needed for organizations to start implementing site reliability engineering (SRE). Attend to learn a practical approach to SRE and its key principles.

4. DevOps testing: Building an automated test-driven workflow for development and continuous integration

This webinar discusses how to incorporate continuous testing into your DevOps workflow to enhance quality and support DevOps processes.

5. Back to the basics: Managing your Linux systems

With constantly evolving security vulnerabilities and technologies, managing a Linux environment is a complex task. Administrators must continuously adapt to new threats while maintaining system stability. In this webinar, we will explore how Red Hat is addressing these challenges by adding stability and security-focused improvements to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.

6. Systems management and security at any scale with minimal effort

During this training webinar, we will discuss ways to configure complex management tasks as automated processes that analyze your platforms and applications, suggest actions, distribute software and tools, and deploy solutions with minimal effort. The techniques and concepts covered will be from the Red Hat Satellite 6.10 Administration (RH403) course, as taught on the Red Hat Online Learning platform.

7. Super Plumber Bros: An event streaming game with change data capture and OpenShift Streams for Apache Kafka

In this Red Hat “Taste of Training” webinar, we will use a game-based scenario called “Super Plumber Bros” to show how to easily create an event-driven architecture (EDA) using a fully hosted and managed Kafka instance provided by Red Hat.

8. Synchronize and manage container-based applications across multiple clusters

It can be difficult to maintain a successful application with many customers located around the world. This presentation will demonstrate how Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes makes it possible to release the same application on multiple data centers from a single, centralized console without the need for manual script creation and configuration to manage the application across multiple clusters.

9. Automating the enterprise with the Ansible Automation Platform

In this webinar on Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, we will use preconfigured resources in an automation controller to build a job workflow template with an approval node to simulate a DevOps pipeline and a deployment scenario that reflects real environments.

10. Demystifying the distributed systems learning journey

With the growing popularity of containerized applications, it is beneficial for developers and other IT professionals to understand Red Hat OpenShift and Kubernetes. While Kubernetes offers efficient solutions for deploying and managing applications, it also requires developers to change their perspective. Attend this webinar to learn why and how to begin working with cloud-native applications.

 

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Red Hat recently released its annual Global Tech Outlook report for November 2022, which surveyed thousands of customers and identified talent and skills gaps as the primary obstacle to digital transformation. As a result, organizations are prioritizing the hiring of knowledgeable team members and providing training for current employees in key technologies. In fact, investing in skills training is a top priority for non-IT-related funding in the coming year.

Due to cost and logistical limitations, it is often not practical for organizations to send all of their employees for formal in-person training. As a result, employees are seeking more flexible and practical learning options that can be tailored to their specific needs and schedules. To meet this demand, Red Hat Training has adapted its offerings by offering a combination of video and text-based training, allowing individuals to choose the format that works best for them.

Your pace, any place

Red Hat’s self-paced virtual training offers the same high-quality educational experience as in-person training, but with the added convenience of being able to access it at any time and from anywhere. This flexible format allows students to fit learning into their personal schedules without incurring travel costs or taking time away from work.

RedHat on-demand training videos offer the same comprehensive content as our in-person courses, but with the added flexibility of being able to access them from any location. Their expert instructors present the material through high-quality videos and additional resources such as e-books and transcripts, and students can also apply their new skills in virtual lab environments.

Red Hat’s self-study training options feature the same curriculum as our other offerings but have been modified to provide the best possible learning experience for independent study. This includes unlimited access to course materials, comprehension checks throughout the units, and email support for any questions about the curriculum. These features ensure that students have the support they need to fully understand the material and succeed in their studies.

Red Hat Training is committed to making our courses accessible to as many learners as possible and is constantly expanding our offerings. Currently, many of our courses are available in at least eight languages, with closed captions available in an additional eleven languages. This enables students from all over the world to improve their skills, prepare for certification exams, and advance their careers.

 

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Here at CourseMonster, we know how hard it may be to find the right time and funds for training. We provide effective training programs that enable you to select the training option that best meets the demands of your company.

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At AnsibleFest 2022, we announced the introduction of Ansible-validated content, a new program designed to provide expert guidance for automating various platform portfolios, including infrastructure, networking, cloud, security, and edge applications.

Ansible validated content is a collection of pre-made YAML content, such as playbooks or roles, that can be used to address common automation needs. These collections can be used as-is or as a way to learn and improve your skills. They provide a reliable starting point for automating tasks and can be customized or used as a learning opportunity.

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To be successful with automation, whether you’re an experienced automation architect or just starting out, there are two key elements you need:

• A strong and reliable ecosystem of integrations that works with the platforms in your IT portfolio.
• Expert knowledge to create dependable automation for the mentioned platforms.

For more than three years, Red Hat Ansible Certified Content has been meeting the need for a strong ecosystem of integrations, and the program has seen significant growth in that time. The supporting ecosystem includes a growing number of top partners with whom we are creating and maintaining integrations with hundreds of platforms through the use of ansible modules.

However, knowing what needs to be automated is only part of the solution. With the release of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.3, you now have access to Ansible-validated content. This is Red Hat’s way of turning expert knowledge into practical operations and providing more best practices for creating dependable automation on top of integrated solutions. Ansible-validated content aims to provide guidance on how to automate tasks based on the experience and insights of experts who have worked with thousands of customers in production environments.

Why should I care about Ansible-validated content?

Automation practices within large organizations are continually evolving:

1. You may be entering a new area that you have never automated before (e.g., automating physical networking infrastructure);
2. You may be familiar with a particular domain but need to continually add new platforms (e.g., expanding hybrid cloud automation to include Microsoft Azure);
3. You may be building cross-functional workflows for the first time (e.g., automating changes to security devices through ServiceNow ITSM tickets).

Regardless of where you are in your journey, the following will be beneficial to you:

• Ansible validated content provides a recommended sequence of foundational use cases to prioritize.
• Expert guidance on how to tackle specific platforms more.
• The use of Ansible-validated content as modular components that can be combined to facilitate interoperability across different elements of your IT infrastructure.

Additionally, these benefits are delivered through the clear and easily understood Ansible language, making ansible validated content an excellent learning resource that helps your organization build expertise from a reliable source.

What does “validated” mean?

Validated content is derived from and supplements Red Hat’s Validated Patterns initiative.

A group of ansible content is carefully chosen by experts such as the Red Hat Automation Community of Practice to guarantee:

• The use cases are based on successful deployments by customers.
• The content creators are verified and reputable subject matter experts.
• The content follows the most current best practices and guidelines established by Red Hat’s engineering team.
• Ansible validated content has been tested with supported versions of the Ansible Automation Platform and is ready for production use.

Upon completion of the curation process, the ansible Automation Platform serves as a trusted distribution system for accessing and using ansible validated content within your organization.

What is Ansible validated content for?

Currently, ansible validated content is created by Red Hat, with plans to include contributions from partners in the future, covering foundational automation for a range of use cases, including edge computing, hybrid cloud, infrastructure, networking, and security.

For each of these domains, the use cases cover all stages of operation from Day 0 (e.g. determining the necessary architecture for getting an app up and running) to Day 2 (e.g. performing routine maintenance or operations on the systems).

They may also address specific platform operations (e.g. configuring SSH on RHEL workloads) or be platform-agnostic (e.g. maintaining firewall rules across an organization with multiple firewall vendors).

Although it would be impractical to cover the specific needs of every organization’s operations, we believe that IT teams will be able to find relevant ansible validated content that aligns with their goals.

What does Ansible validated content look like?

In 2019, we introduced Ansible Content Collections as a new way to package, distribute, and use ansible content (such as playbooks, roles, modules, plugins, tests, and documentation). Ansible validated content is distributed as collections of YAML-based content (e.g. roles and playbooks). It complements and expands upon Red Hat Ansible Certified Content Collections.

Where can I find Ansible validated content?

Ansible Automation Platform 2.3 places a strong focus on enhancing supply chain security, and to support this, ansible validated content will initially be available as a pre-loaded option within the private automation hub. In the future, it will also be available in the Ansible automation hub on console.redhat.com. We will continue to develop more ansible validated content, including contributions from Red Hat and our partners.

Red Hat and the ansible content ecosystem team are enthusiastic about this new tool and the possibilities it will offer. As always, your feedback as customers, automation practitioners, and users is critical in shaping its future. We encourage you to try Ansible Automation Platform 2.3 for yourself by installing the private automation hub and exploring ansible validated content.

 

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Use a variety of supporting roles and processes to streamline system configuration and ensure consistent manual task execution.

What are RHEL system roles?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) system roles include a number of Ansible modules and roles that can be used to automate the management and configuration of RHEL servers. RHEL system roles can simplify administration, lessen technical burdens, and help offer consistent and repeatable setups.

Optimize performance for the open-hybrid enterprise

System roles, which are a part of your RHEL subscription, let you choose from a list of standard services and configuration activities to run automatically. Easily accept new major releases and maintain system settings across various RHEL versions. Use the system roles as-is or customize them to meet specific needs.

• Provide consistent and repeatable configuration
• Reduce technical burdens and streamline administration
• Execute tasks consistently across hybrid cloud footprints
• Scale with Red Hat Smart Management and automation

 

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How many people are required to purchase a pair of shoes? The question is kind of confusing. It requires you and the other person with who you are dealing (assuming you are in a physical store). However, the real question is: How many people go through the process of purchasing a pair of shoes? There are salespeople, store managers, shipping and logistics companies, shoe manufacturers, tool and equipment manufacturers, raw material manufacturers, and so on. The supply chain is made up of all different entities.

Because each of those providers can be seen as a link in a chain, the term “supply chain” is suitable. Additionally, you can begin to see how complicated and linked our world’s economy and way of life are. Since almost everyone is a supplier to someone else (When was the last time you gave your aglet provider any thought at all? ), the shoe example could be an interesting thought experiment.

But what if we talked about buying a software solution instead of shoes? The supply chain size can range depending on the software in question, but the concept is the same. Even internal custom software solutions have their supply chains; but, for this article, let’s focus on the software you are buying, especially open-source software.

Members of the open-source community contribute code to upstream projects, which is basically where the supply chain for open-source software begins. This code is free to use and is contributed to by many groups and individuals worldwide. From there, businesses and other organizations take the code and either add it to a product they sell or distribute and support it for a fee.

Companies like Red Hat, for instance, charge monthly fees for support and maintenance so that the customers don’t have to perform these tasks themselves (which is certainly an option). Other businesses incorporate open-source software into manufactured goods, such as Internet of Things devices. Today, chances are good that you already have a piece of equipment running open-source software.

You can start to visualize the software supply chain based on these examples. By the way, you can generally find a note in the user interface—for example, under a “help” or “support” menu option—if you wish to see if a device uses open-source software.

What is Supply Chain Attack?

Supply chain attacks are nothing new; this strategy has been used for a very long time. To achieve a tactical or strategic edge, an adversary would, for instance, try to sabotage or damage an enemy’s supply line (such as food or artillery) during a military fight. A software supply chain attack, however, differs significantly from the previous example and to some part from other cyberattacks. But in each of these situations, the attacker is searching for a weakness in the code to take advantage of (and at a high level). Attacks on the software supply chain are frequently (though not always) used as a way to gain access to something else. In other words, the “maker” is just a means to an end; they are not the goal.

When major retailers and home improvement companies faced breaches because of a weakness in their supply networks, the early examples of supply chain attacks made the news. The retailer’s internal network was accessed through a hack at a software provider. The attackers in this case, as well as similar ones, were for data, specifically the credit card details and other sensitive data of their customers. However, such a breach resulted in additional problems that made the attacker’s task simpler. In a moment, they’ll expand a little more on it. Attacks on the software supply chain have advanced in recent years as cybercriminals learn and adjust to better security standards and procedures.

Early in 2020, a new supply chain attack made news throughout the world. The attackers were able to access the organization’s source code repositories and insert malicious code, which exposed the clientele of the organization. Once more, the software solution provider was not the end goal; rather, it was the data of their clients, likely for use in espionage and other illegal activities. Actors who are “state-sponsored” are supposedly involved in this case. And in yet another instance, when a network of an energy company was breached as part of a ransomware attack, a supply chain was seriously affected. The physical and financial effects of this attack are felt right away. They bring up this particular occurrence because its effects spilled over into the physical world and had an impact. Long queues at the gas pumps are caused by a cyberattack where I live. Future supply chain threats should and can be anticipated to become more sophisticated.

Why is this important, and why should you care?

If the examples that gave above are not enough, their partner Alison Naylor highlighted that the world is getting more connected and that there are connected devices almost everywhere in her blog article about IoT devices and their security. Each of those devices is powered by software in some way (also called firmware). Going about your regular activities without interacting with anything that runs software would be difficult, if not impossible. All of the things you use every day that rely on software are devices, including your home, automobile, neighborhood grocery shop, nearby gas station, and a long list of other things. And chances are they are related to one another. Manufacturers of these devices must treat their source code properly; however, they’ll get to that in a minute. The point is that we are almost surrounded by computer-controlled objects, and they depend on this software to carry out their daily tasks and manage their lives. Suppliers of software must make sure their code is as safe and secure as possible.

What can (and should) you do to secure your supply chain?

You should have a security program that makes it significant, teaches, and advocates security practices since security is not a place you reach or can declare “winning” over. Your information security team should have created rules that force compliance and validate it. Do you remember the incident where we said that the attacker’s job was made even simpler? The attacker was able to access the data in plain sight since the company’s documented best practices for storing sensitive data were not being followed. Additionally, you should have a product security organization (or something comparable) whose goal is to confirm the reliability of your program. Your team can no longer limit itself to addressing the most recent code vulnerabilities. To promote fundamental security practices on the systems and services that make up your software pipeline, your product security organization should collaborate with your information security organization. But it goes further than that. If they haven’t already, product security should also be considering and planning to implement techniques like Supply-Chain Levels for Software Artifacts (SLSA) or NIST’s Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF). Following those kinds of frameworks not only puts you on the right road for improving the security of your specific link in the supply chain but also shows your customers that you are responding correctly.

An attempted cyber attack is not a question of if it happens. It will happen. No matter what position you take, it is your responsibility as a company associate to actively prevent attacks or at the very least to minimize their success. Your security program should make appropriate plans, and a strong security program also includes having a resiliency strategy. A company interruption could be exceedingly expensive, harmful, or worse. Numerous research and statistics surround this, but one number recently caught my attention was the following: “96% of businesses with a disaster recovery plan in place fully recover operations.” That is an astounding success rate!

This article is not intended to serve as a road map for creating a strategy to increase supply chain security, but it should provide you with some ideas and great starting points. However, creating and implementing security policies will depend on what is best for your organization, including the risks you may face and are prepared to take. A huge international corporation is more likely than, say, a nearby small business to be both at risk of attack and unwilling to accept some degree of risk.

Where to begin (certainly not an exhaustive list):

• Do you have an information security policy or a set of guidelines?
  • Is it imposed? If a policy is not implemented, having it somewhere is just marginally better than having none at all.
  • Is compliance being audited regularly?
• Do you have a strategy or are you using a set of best practices for managing software and its source code?
• Do you have a resiliency plan?
  • Do you test it?
• Does your business assess the risk associated with its vendors? In other words, do you pose the same hard questions to your suppliers?
  • I/They don’t have a right to know that, you might be thinking. It is not my or their concern! ” It could feel a little nosey or even cringy like you are trespassing on their land.
  • Ah! However, it is your concern! You have a right to know that your vendor won’t be the next target of an attack on your business or, worse yet, your customers. You should also be aware of their capacity to withstand an attack as well as to minimize it. What would you do if an important supplier went out of business suddenly because they weren’t capable of surviving some form of disaster? What would occur to your company?

Reminder: Solving each of these difficulties can be extremely difficult, expensive, and time-consuming. Divide these issues into more manageable ones. Determining your degrees of risk and risk acceptability will help you do this and prioritize where you should spend your efforts initially. Attempting to address all of these issues at once will likely lead to organizational frustration and burnout, little progress on all fronts, and essentially no risks avoided or minimized.

One final thought for all of us who work in this field: Being the “weakest link” in the chain (either personally or organizationally) is unacceptable, even when we don’t want to be it. You must hold each other responsible as a community of software developers, providers, and users. Asking your suppliers to confirm—and even demonstrate—that they are adhering to particular standards, legislation, etc. is quite acceptable. This could already be a question your customers are asking of your business. Such accountability only makes your community stronger.

 

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There is a wide range of industries involved in retail all across the world. Franchise businesses, local stores selling necessities like food and supplies, and businesses that produce and market goods with a strong global brand are all examples of this. However, for the vast majority of retail enterprises, profit margins are low and getting even lower. Some segments of the industry are widely known for producing high profits from small volumes.

Many retailers rightly rely on open-source software to keep their IT systems running given the context of low profits, constrained budgets, and the complexity of IT systems required to keep their company going. The benefits are well known: open source software is simple to use, trustworthy, and usually seen as being affordable.

So why should businesses be concerned with enterprise open-source software? That must have a cost, right?

The fourth edition of Red Hat’s The State of Enterprise Open Source research shows how businesses in a variety of industries are using enterprise open source to carry out their IT tasks.

“What we found as we embarked on our fourth annual The State of Enterprise Open Source: A Red Hat Report is that not only is the open source development model showing no signs of slowing down, it has actually accelerated during the pandemic.” Paul Cormier, Chairman, Red Hat

The report, which analyzes the use of enterprise open-source software, is based on interviews with 1,296 IT leaders from 14 countries. The survey’s sponsors, Red Hat, were not disclosed to the respondents, who claimed to have control over purchasing decisions in their company (in app development, app infrastructure, cloud, storage, middleware, server OS, or virtualization). Additionally, respondents had to be knowledgeable about corporate open source and have at least 1% of Linux installed in their organizations.

The outcomes are obvious. Enterprise open-source software, according to IT leaders, offers a better security posture and is generally of higher quality than proprietary options. These two points are important factors in their decision-making process. When IT leaders research enterprise open-source software, the cost is still a factor, but it’s not the only one. This is supported by the fact that 95% of respondents indicated that enterprise open source is important to the successful enterprise infrastructure of their organization.

Key findings for the retail industry

The State of Enterprise Open Source: Retail’s analysis of the key findings from the retail business offers some interesting insights into the retail industry, which included 90 IT leaders from the retail sector from 14 different countries.

It’s interesting to note that 92% of IT leaders believed that corporate open-source solutions were important in managing their COVID-related difficulties given that retail underwent a metamorphosis during the recent COVID pandemic on a global scale.

Any retail organization must now prioritize protecting customer data while bolstering IT system security. According to the research, 92% of IT leaders think enterprise open-source software is just as secure as proprietary software, if not more so.

Why is enterprise open source important to retail?

The retail industry is always changing. Retailers are continuously looking for ways to better serve their customers as a result of declining profit margins, quickly rising costs and more complex supply networks.

Enterprise open-source solutions can usually differentiate a company from its competitors for a retail customer when pursuing business innovation with next-generation technology and ongoing development. According to the study, 78% of IT leaders expect using enterprise open-source software for emerging technologies will increase.

Enterprise open-source software is replacing proprietary software in the hands of IT leaders more often. These IT leaders anticipate using less proprietary software in two years—from 45% to 36%—while using more enterprise open source software—from 31% to 37%. Enterprise open-source software has significantly replaced proprietary software as a result.

According to these data, retail IT professionals are increasingly depending on enterprise open-source software to foster company innovation and manage IT costs.

How do these findings shape the retail industry?

When IT leaders are asked how their organizations use enterprise open-source software and solutions, infrastructure modernization usually ranks as the most important answer for the majority of the industries included in the survey. This indicates that industries continue to replace their proprietary software and equipment. But in the retail sector, digital transformation comes out on top with 62%, followed closely by DevOps and modernizing the IT infrastructure with 59% and 58%, respectively.

Given that digital transformation, DevOps, and infrastructure modernization are the top three uses for enterprise open-source software, it follows that IT leaders in the retail sector are primarily concerned with enhancing their infrastructure while working to provide better services and features to their customers.

How can the retail industry benefit from enterprise open source?

What does this mean for retailers? How exactly are they utilizing corporate open source to enhance their operations? The best approach to respond to this issue is with an actual example.

Local IT operations are usually managed by some servers that are usually found in the back room of brick-and-mortar retail establishments. They are used for a wide range of things, including recording refrigeration maintenance data, store and coworker work rotas, and stock movements.

Many establishments will also have security cameras that capture video feeds to a permanent data store for security reasons. The local store servers wouldn’t be a part of this system.

What might result from some kind of mix of the following? An AI system running on the local IT servers may record the video feeds as well as analyze them for behavior like:

• Blocking aisles and hindering customers are abandoned shopping carts or refilling cages.
• A backlog of customers at the registers generates an automatic alert to suggest creating another register.
• Customers running through the store or other unusual activity may point to a problem that needs to be looked into.

The latency and network bandwidth required to transport the video stream off-site for processing and then return an alert to trigger some action would be too great for real-time video analysis to be performed in the store.

Although there are proprietary solutions out there, their cost to implement in every store can be too high. This is the situation where enterprise open source can help. If you think about the elements needed to make the solution work, they could be:

• A machine learning component that analyzes video feeds to generate a model for the event the retailer is searching for, such as blocked lanes, a buildup of lines, and running customers
• A well-defined model that recognizes the actual events but does not respond to a related but unrelated event
• A system for getting the model into every shop.
• Using the model to analyze the video feeds in-store, find the triggered event
• To alert colleagues to take action, distribution or alerting is used in connection with the triggering event.

Red Hat is just one of the suppliers that provide enterprise open-source software that might be used to provide each of these components.

Enterprise open-source software offers a continuous conduit to the advancement of the technologies implemented in conjunction with other businesses across the ecosystem in the open-source community, in addition to being more cost-effective. Global retailers usually use a variety of hardware and operating systems, which enterprise open-source solutions can better support. It offers an unrestricted choice among the best-advanced techniques from a single original provider. Collaboration on platforms that can offer this as a service to the industry at large is inspired by the use of enterprise open source.

Summary

Retailers must set themselves apart from the competition by providing higher-quality products and services for their clients, workers, and company. For them to be able to achieve this, they must have the freedom to continuously develop the in-store experience for their customers with affordable solutions. Making this a reality requires having access to cutting-edge technology that will define the platforms of the future. When compared to proprietary or open-source alternatives, enterprise open-source technologies offer solutions that are more robust and efficient.

 

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Here at CourseMonster, we know how hard it may be to find the right time and funds for training. We provide effective training programs that enable you to select the training option that best meets the demands of your company.

For more information, please get in touch with one of our course advisers today or contact us at training@coursemonster.com

Right now, it’s simple for businesses to enter survival mode. Consumer demand is preparing for the full effects of the cost of living problem, supply chains are groaning from inflationary and worker constraints, and climate change is no longer a distant threat, all while geopolitical maneuvers are frightening markets virtually every day. You are in an unpredictably uncertain time.

Business executives could be tempted to protect themselves and weather the storm. Stop pursuing any growth goals and hold onto what you have until conditions improve. It makes sense to consider significant investments to be risky today. But business success depends on always surpassing the competitors. Stopping sends you on a course that you might never be able to reverse.

There is a middle ground where you don’t have to stop or spend money to get out of trouble. You might find that you have what you need if you take a look at what you already have.

Look at the schools for a recent lesson on how to achieve this. Education continued even after schools were forced to close because of COVID-19. Schools evaluated their resources, including laptops, communication tools, and a community of receptive parents. Mass homeschooling appeared out of nowhere.

Knowing what you have is the first step in maximizing its worth.

Start by performing a software and technology audit. Red Hat doesn’t always ask the most of our technology in good times. While its other capabilities are inactive, they purchase it and use it to complete a task. The time has come to maximize everything you have already paid for.

Do you know what additional capabilities IT comes with if you subscribe to it, possibly as a cloud service? The benefits of your membership could—should—include technical support, security updates, business consulting, education and training, networking, analytics, and input into a vendor’s product roadmap.

These run the risk of being ignored and dismissed as simply decorative extras. However, utilizing them might offer solutions for improving your tech stack and managing your IT more affordably. According to an IDC report of the value of our subscriptions, companies that use Red Hat saw a reduction in their three-year operational costs of 35%, a 38% increase in the efficiency of their IT infrastructure teams, and a 21% increase in productivity from their development teams.

Then, consider your people. Job titles might cause companies to become overly focused. They just give you a portion of the story—what a person is doing, as opposed to what they could be capable of doing. Having a skills audit is a more useful exercise than reducing roles. It always reveals talent you didn’t know you had and that can be redeployed to tasks that have grown more important, in my experience.

The ecosystem is the next factor. Perhaps you’re not even aware that you belong to one. But stop to analyze all the businesses you touch, including your partners in technology, suppliers, agencies, and customers. There’s a good chance that they share your pressures. Make use of these connections. You invite assistance from others by reaching out and expressing your desire to assist. Better contract terms, product development input, or simply another set of eyes on the difficulties you confront could be the reward. Working together produces amazing results.

Running open-source software in an organization with an open culture makes all of this simpler. An open-source stack is flexible, allowing the capacity to quickly switch between important infrastructure setups and investigate product software integrations. Change and collaboration are ideals that are “business as usual” in an open culture. Communities are not abstract ideas; rather, they are highly organized ecosystems with clear engagement processes.

Contrast this with a company established on rigid, proprietary technology, where secrecy is the default setting and change is limited by top-down decisions. One model is comparable to reversing an oil tanker in a storm, while the other is similar to a swimmer changing lanes in calm seas.

92% of IT leaders believe that corporate open-source solutions were important in resolving their COVID-related issues. Companies that invested in open-source technology and the culture that goes with it were better prepared for the challenging times they have just encountered.

The challenges that businesses face are wide and complex. Businesses are recently challenged by the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression. More recently, COVID-19 sprang out of nowhere and completely changed how you see the world. The lesson is to always expect the unexpected, so prepare and develop today for the agility you will eventually need. Add in “local” shocks—governments dissolving, currencies crashing, floods and wildfires raging—and the lesson is to always expect the unexpected.

 

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Here at CourseMonster, we know how hard it may be to find the right time and funds for training. We provide effective training programs that enable you to select the training option that best meets the demands of your company.

For more information, please get in touch with one of our course advisers today or contact us at training@coursemonster.com