Mega cloud providers are dominating the conversation of the future of IT. News headlines about “new 150,000 square foot data center put down in this city” or “AWS or Microsoft or Google scoops up this government contract for $25 Billion” all add to the acceptance of those brand names and their approaches.
I noticed today (11/30/2020) that if you search for “Why OpenStack” Google will even auto suggest “why openstack failed”. OpenStack did not fail! But in some ways, we (the OpenStack Community) did not make OpenStack accessible enough to allow adoption easily for key segments of users that really need OpenStack. You can check out my “Why is On-Demand OpenStack Important for SMBs?” for more detail, but in summary:
- OpenStack deployments require key staff with solid skills in networking, server hardware, cloud concepts, API experience, and big picture views
- Many OpenStack deployments still fail due a skills gap, a budget gap, and a lack of long term planning
- A successful OpenStack deployment is a great way for existing system administration teams to provide cloud to their company at a lower TCO than public clouds.
The key take away – Easier adoption by SMBs will help drive OpenStack to greater growth and utility while saving those SMBs money to put towards better products, people, and profit.
So,
How we made OpenStack easier to adopt
First, we created the fastest to deploy, lowest cost footprint we could come up with that is production safe.
- 3 servers
- Spun up in about 45 minutes
- On demand billing but also costs under $600/mo for the basic version
- Can be trialed for free for Proof of Concepts
- Fully production-ready, fully private control plane
- Scales easily in a non-disruptive fashion
- Prescriptive for efficient day 2 operations
The risky, expensive, and lengthy OpenStack pilot program barrier is gone.
The new way to OpenStack is available as the core of our Infrastructure as a Service and comes with all you need to learn, deploy, and lower costs with OpenStack.
Why is “on demand” OpenStack critical to the future of Open Source?
OpenStack is a leading Open Source project with over 1000 contributors on the last release. But that is not enough to match the incessant mega cloud hyper-scalers. We need more than just the current providers and a small set of enterprise users. We need the 10s of thousands of smaller IT firms and the 100s of thousands of small and medium businesses!
With easy access to learn OpenStack and to upskill their current IT staff, the dollars and cents will pencil and the floodgates will open.
That is what we are seeing and what we believe!