The continuum of open source migration potential

I know that technology executives tend to be a practical group, so it's no surprise that Linux adoption has been a steady movement starting with lower-risk areas of the enterprise. You probably already have at least a few Linux servers running somewhere. So what's the next practical step?

Take an informal assessment of your server landscape, and determine those areas that may be a candidate for migration based on: ease of migration, risk of end user disruption, expected hardware retirement date, software licensing and support expiration, and staffing skill set. The goal is to choose a migration path that will provide the most benefit with the least risk and disruption. You will find that there is a continuum of migration potential, from relatively easy to relatively difficult, depending on your exact mix of IT landscape features. From this, you can begin to base a migration plan.

I'll talk more later about what this continuum will look like for most organizations. Open source adoption doesn't have to be radical - the trick is to determine your organization's correct path on the continuum.