The final major concern for enterprise shops is the lack of verifiable interoperability testing between the open source storage software and other hardware and software products in the user's environment. NRG's Hull notes that while interoperability is not a major concern for over 90% of his installs, he still never discounts the possibility of having to troubleshoot interoperability issues. Cambridge Computer's CTO Farmer says, "Unless the software has comprehensive support services behind it such as Amanda does, one needs a really good reason to mess around with it since primary storage is such a vital piece of the IT infrastructure."

Next Steps with Open Source

For the most part, open source storage software is still largely a work in progress that requires users to have years of practical experience as well as the time to research and support the products. However, there are initiatives under way to make it easier and more practical for users to deploy open source storage software.

First, vendors like Zmanda are helping to make a product like Amanda a more viable option for the average user. One of Zmanda's goals for the next 12 months is to simplify the install, configuration and management of Amanda so that it can be set up and managed by a novice or entry-level administrator.

Second, open source projects like Aperi are creating a standards based, open source software framework to manage storage networks. Standards like the Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S) which defines a method for interoperable management in heterogeneous SANs that is now included with most storage software but provides users with no software to manage storage devices. Aperi goes the final mile and provides users with the needed open source storage software to manage storage that supports SMI-S.