Page 36 - PAKISTAN ACCOUNTANT Oct-Dec 2014

A C C OUNTING Microsoft i.e. MS Office. Currently under the warmth of system floating around the web, most of them cater to ubiquitous Apache Software Foundation, this project is the needs of specialised segments such as for system definitely in safe hands. The offerings of Word, Excel and auditing, for servers, for educationists, for musicians, PowerPoint are quite competently challenged by the etc., and each one is equipped with unique blend of capabilities of Writer, Calc and Impress respectively in software and utilities for target audience. The wide OpenOffice suite of office productivity. variety of acclaimed Linux distributions can be analysed at www.distrowatch.com. However, the following two LibreOffice (www.libreoffice.org) distributions are the most popular ones: It’s a fork of OpenOffice, led by the renegades of original project, equally dependable and sufficiently compatible Linux Mint (www.linuxmint.com) with MS Office. In recent times the industry pundits It is a general purpose user friendly Linux distribution are recommending LibreOffice more frequently over and the closest experience that open-source has to offer OpenOffice due to its rapid evolution. to MS Windows users. Cloud solution Ubuntu (www.ubuntu.com) Cloud is a buzz word nowadays and the promise it Ubuntu is an African word which means ‘humanity to holds against desperate IT infrastructure and incoherent others’. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, deployment of software from an entity level up to global advocates the motto of open-source throughout the scale, is beyond doubt a very enticing one. Among a world. Ubuntu is the most stable and complete operating plethora of offerings, a couple of leading open-source system out there; in fact Linux Mint is a cosmetic Cloud solutions being deployed throughout the world is: extension of Ubuntu. So, what’s the catch in adopting the open- source software? For one, opponents claim that since the source code is known to everyone, it’s highly risky to run mission critical operations on such software. Secondly, if the software is developed without any strings attached to profit making motives, then how come it will remain feasible for developers to spare time for further development of software let alone allocate time to provide proper support after deployment? To answer these queries a whole separate article is required, however it is sufficient enough to mention here an interesting fact that above 50% OpenStack Cloud Software (www.openstack.org) of all the global servers that are acting as web servers OpenStack is a cloud operating system that controls (computers which are connected to form the Internet) large pools of computer, storage, and networking are Linux and Apache HTTP Server based, both of them resources, all managed through a dashboard that gives are open-source software. Such an extensive use for such administrators control while empowering their users to mission critical task in itself is an acknowledgement of provision resources through a web interface. the advantages that open-source software provides over its alleged shortcomings. Apache CloudStack (cloudstack.apache.org) Apache CloudStack is open-source software designed to We don’t have to go on great voyages across vast oceans deploy and manage large networks of virtual machines, towards the West in order to observe the emphasis over as a highly available, highly scalable IaaS (Infrastructure open-source adoption; former Indian President A.P.J. as a Service) cloud computing platform. CloudStack is Abdul Kalam, a scientist himself, frequently emphasised used by a number of service providers to offer public that open-source software offered developing nations cloud services, and by many companies to provide an such as India the best opportunity to modernise. Once he on-premises (private) cloud offering, or as part of a said, “The most unfortunate thing is that India still seems hybrid cloud solution. to believe in proprietary solutions. Further spread of IT, which is influencing the daily lives of individuals, would Operating System have a devastating effect on the lives of society due to any small shift in the business practice involving these The good thing about trying Linux is that you don’t proprietary solutions. It is precisely for these reasons have to install the operating system on your hard disk, open-source software needs to be built, which would be instead Live CDs can be used to run the whole operating cost-effective for the entire society. In India, open-source system on the fly from the compact disk or USB. There code software will have to come and stay in a big way for are hundreds of different distributions of Linux operating the benefit of our billion people.” The Pakistan Accountant | Oct-Dec 2014 35