Open source is quite the buzzword these days.
It seems that every last thing you hear about is open source. So much so, in fact, that it can sometimes be hard to figure out exactly how it’s being used, or why. But as it turns out, at App47, we’re all about open source—and we think we’re a great example of how organizations can use open source to make a better product and bring ideas to market more quickly.
Back in the “old” days, a company like App47 may have looked completely different. I’ve run different tech teams where we’ve built everything from scratch. If we were looking to add reverse geocoding functionality to find IP addresses and make decisions about how the software should behave, we would spend a week writing rule sets, figuring out UI management, and going through the rest of the process to get things working seamlessly. Setting up servers took a while, too.
All told, it may have taken a team of 10 people then to do what 2 people can do today with open source technology.
Enter today. When we built App47, we weighed all the options for open source automation software. We looked at two of the most popular tools, Chef and Puppet, but ultimately decided on an IT automation software called Ansible that’s given us everything we need and more. What once would’ve taken us a week now takes us a fraction of that time. As a matter of fact, that reverse geocoding functionality we mentioned above that would’ve taken us a week to build from scratch took us about 2 hours to integrate last week.
What does that mean in practice? It means that Ansible has helped App47 be better. Because it fit within our environment and because it’s so easy to set up, our entire process has been tremendously simplified. Server setup takes 30 minutes instead of a day, and thanks to consistent language on the servers, we know exactly where everything is located—every time. We can add new software features and scale them easily, and scan for bugs and security features. Our servers are updated daily, so we know we have the most secure, reliable software we can.
None of this would be possible without the open source community. These days, it’s hard to count the lines of code that are ours and those that are open source. We’ve benefited tremendously from the open source community, and we make sure to give back regularly, too. We help fix bugs and add feature enhancements, but quite frankly, it’s amazing what we’re able to do within this new environment today.
Needless to say, we’re big fans of open source—both using and contributing to. If you’re looking for an example of what Ansible and open source tech can do, look no further than App47. We’re living proof of how this great new(ish) movement can help make companies better.
