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SMS. JustDial had to ensure that the system was built by carefully evaluating and
selecting software components based on specific business and technological needs.
Interoperability is also found to reduce vendor dependency and increase the ability
to customize and innovate using available tools and frameworks. Interoperability of
FOSS components makes it easier to build on top of other components leading to
better reuse. As an example, the ability to customize Ubuntu and integrate it with
the Mozilla browser to enhance the data extraction performance on the Information
Retrieval Officer's workstation was a major factor for its selection in JustDial.
10.4.3 Performance and Scalability
Respondents unanimously agreed that FOSS provided better performance parame-
ters, primarily due to the ability to tweak and fine-tune performance to meet spe-
cific requirements. JustDial had stringent performance requirements on their search
engine and data extraction algorithms. Open source provided JustDial the ability
to choose the hardware platform and develop the software through mixing-and-
matching of various open source components that delivered superior performance.
One example was the use of Sphinx, a full text search engine that integrates well
with the SQL database and provides the ability to achieve fast, relevant and full text
search. In addition, the choice of these open source components provided JustDial
the ability to scale up and support their aggressive growth targets.
The availability of more than one tried and tested, highly scalable, light-weight, open source
framework allows wider choice and makes fine-tuning for performance easier. . . [In addi-
tion] availability of source code gives a sense of ownership vital for sustainable product
development.
Scalability concerns are one of the major drivers for FOSS adoption among busi-
nesses. FOSS adoption allows businesses to explore multiple options, experiment,
customize and innovate without any upfront investments. When finally deployed,
it helps scale up rapidly while sustaining the cost advantage. Respondents felt that
scalability of FOSS makes it an attractive choice for governments and large busi-
nesses as well. With the expectation of high growth, scalability was a key strategic
imperative for Cleartrip. Given the need for scalability and load balancing require-
ments, they chose to deploy a stateless environment. The ability to tune their Apache
Tomcat web server enabled them to meet this requirement.
10.4.4 Stability
A majority of the respondents (71 % ) indicated that FOSS has been instrumental
in creating more stable systems, whereas a small percentage (5 %) felt that FOSS
systems are not yet as stable as proprietary software, and the rest indicated no
significant differences. FOSS adopters who considered FOSS as stable, observed
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