CERN to replace Microsoft products with open source software

CERN is in the process of replacing its Microsoft products. The organization does this because of an increase in license costs. The institute says that it will try as much as possible to use open source software when looking for replacement software.

Emmanuel Ormancey, a systems analyst at CERN, describes that the commercial software licenses are no longer tenable. The Institute of the Underground Particle Accelerator in Switzerland was able to fund Microsoft programs for decades because a lower fee for academic institutions applied. However, that is no longer the case; Microsoft has revoked this academic status for CERN.

According to Ormancey, this means licensing costs will be more than tenfold. The institute has negotiated a kind of transition period with Microsoft, whereby this cost increase would gradually increase over a period of ten years, but that does not alter the fact that this is not sustainable for CERN, according to Ormancey.

Withdrawing academic status means that the number of individual users is considered. Due to the many partnerships within CERN and the wider community, a large number of licenses would be required to provide the services to everyone. Such a business model from the private sector, which looks at the number of users, would become too expensive.

CERN has already responded to this by creating the Microsoft Alternatives project a year ago. The goal of this project is to explore the transition from commercial software products from Microsoft and other companies to open source solutions. The basic principle is that the service level for all CERN staff remains at the same level, that control over the data remains and that there should be no vendor lock-in. This summer a pilot will start with a new mail service for some of the staff. In addition, there will be a pilot where some Skype for Business clients will be ported.